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James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 13

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You write in order to change the world.

You write in order to change the world.

James A. Baldwin
Writing, Order, World
"Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

In overlooking, denying, evading this complexity--which is nothing more than the disquieting complexity of ourselves--we are diminished and we perish; only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves. It is this power of revelation that is the business of the novelist, this journey toward a more vast reality which must take precedence over other claims.

James A. Baldwin
Journey, Reality, Darkness

The miracle is that some have stepped out of the rags of the Republic's definition to assume the great burden and glory of their humanity and their responsibility for one another. It is an extraordinary achievement to be trapped in the dungeon of color and to dare to shake down its walls and to step out of it leaving the jailkeeper in the rubble.

James A. Baldwin
Wall, Responsibility, Color

Europe has what we [Americans] do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life's possibilities.

James A. Baldwin
Europe, Tragedy, Needs

Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

James A. Baldwin
Home, Mean, Thinking

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
Inspirational, Faithful, Excess
"Stranger in the Village", Harper's, October 1953.

Most people... find a disorientating mismatch between the long-term nature of their liabilities and the increasingly short-term nature of their assets.

James A. Baldwin
Long, People, Mismatch

There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.

James A. Baldwin
Splendor, Desolation, Fearful

Life is more important than art; that's what makes art important.

James A. Baldwin
Life, Art, Important

I don't know, now, when I first looked at Hella and found her stale, found her body uninteresting, her presence grating. It seemed to happen all at once—I suppose that only means that it had been happening for a long time.

James A. Baldwin
Mean, Long, Body

It is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important.

James A. Baldwin
Art, Important, Looks
"Autobiographical Notes" by James A. Baldwin (1952), republished in James A. Baldwin "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), archive.nytimes.com.

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

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty...the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent humanity, the mark of cruelty.

James A. Baldwin
Heart, Eye, Humanity

When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.

James A. Baldwin
Writing, Trying, Want
"LGBTQ People Of Color Are Not Monolithic—In Reality Or Fiction" by Riley S. Wilson, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 13, 2015.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

James A. Baldwin
Truth, Roots, Literature

Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give.

James A. Baldwin
Sweet, Giving, Experience
"Autobiographical Notes" by James A. Baldwin (1952), republished in James A. Baldwin "Notes of a Native Son" (1955), archive.nytimes.com.

Well,’ I said, ‘Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn’t what you feel in New York — ’He was smiling. I stopped. ‘What do you feel in New York?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps you feel,’ I told him, ‘all the time to come. There’s such power there, everything is in such movement. You can’t help wondering—I can’t help wondering—what it will all be like— many years from now.

James A. Baldwin
New York, Years, Paris

If all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination.

James A. Baldwin
Imagination, Needs, Want

I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.

James A. Baldwin
Thinking, People, Feelings

Secrets hidden at the heart of midnight are simply waiting to be dragged to the light, as, on some unlucky high noon, they always are. But secrets shrouded in the glare of candor are bound to defeat even the most determined and agile inspector for the light is always changing and proves that the eye cannot be trusted.

James A. Baldwin
Heart, Eye, Light

People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street.

James A. Baldwin
Kids, People, Psychology
"James Baldwin Back Home" by Robert Coles, archive.nytimes.com. July 31, 1977.

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
Mother, Brother, Father

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

James A. Baldwin
Keys, Diversity, Literature

The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.

James A. Baldwin
Determination, Mean, Lessons

At four o'clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.

James A. Baldwin
Morning, Wine, Drunk

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