You write in order to change the world. James A. Baldwin More Quotes by James A. Baldwin More Quotes From James A. Baldwin Hatred destroys the person who hates. James A. Baldwin hate hatred persons All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive. James A. Baldwin maturity girl boys Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty - necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels. James A. Baldwin atheism arrogance spiritual I really do believe in the New Jerusalem. I really do believe that we can all become better than we are. I know we can. But the price is enormous and people are not yet willing to pay it. James A. Baldwin pay believe people One writes out of one thing only - one's own experience. James A. Baldwin one-thing writing Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. James A. Baldwin experience sweet giving It was as though we were a picture, trapped in time: this had been happening for hundreds of years, people sitting in a room, waiting for dinner, and listening to the blues. James A. Baldwin music people years She was twenty and had come to realize that, though she had a voice, she wasn't a singer; that to endure and embrace the life of a singer demands a whole lot more than a voice. James A. Baldwin music voice twenties Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses. James A. Baldwin faithful excess inspirational The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly. James A. Baldwin ugly beautiful people One can only face in others what one can face in oneself. James A. Baldwin oneself faces relationship I am certainly convinced that it is one of the greatest impulses of mankind to arrive at something higher than a natural state. James A. Baldwin destiny states natural how can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should? James A. Baldwin levels people way Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely. James A. Baldwin institutions cases death All of us know, whether or not we are able to admit it, that mirrors can only lie, that death by drowning is all that awaits one there. It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided. Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. James A. Baldwin mirrors love-is lying Youth must be the worst time in anybody's life. Everything's happening for the first time, which means that sorrow, then, lasts forever. Later, you can see that there was something very beautiful in it. That's because you ain't got to go through it no more. James A. Baldwin forever beautiful mean America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show; the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep. James A. Baldwin views sleep men The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through. James A. Baldwin events knowing An American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa. James A. Baldwin black faces men There was no room in God's army for the coward heart, no crown awaiting him who put mother or father, sister or brother, sweetheart or friend above God's will. Let the church cry amen to this! James A. Baldwin brother mother father
