The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. James A. Baldwin More Quotes by James A. Baldwin More Quotes From James A. Baldwin Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind. James A. Baldwin indifference terror blind It is said that the camera cannot lie, but rarely do we allow it to do anything else, since the camera sees what you point it at: the camera sees what you want it to see. James A. Baldwin cameras want lying Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth. James A. Baldwin growth grace fear The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now. James A. Baldwin challenges live-in-the-moment children The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself. James A. Baldwin expectations lying world The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross. James A. Baldwin white-man justice men Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. James A. Baldwin family wisdom education If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live. James A. Baldwin dies able inspirational You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. James A. Baldwin beats blood way If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him. James A. Baldwin validity use religious It will be hard James but you come from sturdy peasant stock men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads and in the teeth of the most terrifying odds achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity You come from a long line of great poets some of the greatest poets since Homer. One of them said "The very time I thought I was lost My dungeon shook and my chains fell off." You know and I know that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon. We cannot be free until they are free. God bless you James and Godspeed. James A. Baldwin odds men country Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society. James A. Baldwin inspirational war life Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks. James A. Baldwin fire work men Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master. James A. Baldwin diversity justice culture American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. James A. Baldwin american-history literature beautiful Writing is a political instrument. James A. Baldwin instruments political writing One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up. James A. Baldwin astonishment one-day blow The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions. James A. Baldwin black white men Art has to be a kind of confession. I don't mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too - the terms with which they are connected to other people. James A. Baldwin mean people art A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. James A. Baldwin risk
