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James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 7

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To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

James A. Baldwin
Country, African American, Literature
"A race riot forever changed my city. Hollywood only told half the story" by Bankole Thompson, www.theguardian.com. August 28, 2017.

For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for whatthey become.

James A. Baldwin
Children, Pay, Profit

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

James A. Baldwin
Writing, Responsibility, People
"Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. No one can tell him about that. No one can control that reality. It reminds me of something Pablo Picasso was supposed to have said to Gertrude Stein while he was painting her portrait. Gertrude said, “I don’t look like that.” And Picasso replied, “You will.” And he was right.

James A. Baldwin
Reality, Risk, Portraits

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

James A. Baldwin
Liberty, Affliction, Crutches

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

James A. Baldwin
Life, One Day, Oneself

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
Believe, People, Pay

Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.

James A. Baldwin
Change, Breakup, Real
"Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1961.

One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.

James A. Baldwin
Blow, One Day, Astonishment
"Fifth Avenue, Uptown" by James A. Baldwin, www.esquire.com. July 1960.

The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen ... Perhaps it can't be done without the poet, but it certainly can't be done without the people. The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but that's all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.

James A. Baldwin
People, Needs, Done

People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen forget.

James A. Baldwin
Pain, People, Hatred
"Giovanni's Room". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1956.

To be with God is really to be involved in some enormous, overwhelming desire, and joy, and power which you cannot control, which controls you.

James A. Baldwin
God, Overwhelming Desire, Joy

Education is indoctrination if you're white - subjugation if you're black.

James A. Baldwin
Education, School, White

Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?

James A. Baldwin
House, Burning, Want
The Fire Next Time (1963)

Man cannot live by profit alone.

James A. Baldwin
Men, Profit, Live By

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours.

James A. Baldwin
Music, Men, Air

You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.

James A. Baldwin
Change, Writing, Reality

People who cling to their illusions find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn anything worth learning: a people under the necessity of creating themselves must examine everything, and soak up learning the way the roots of a tree soak up water.

James A. Baldwin
Roots, Creating, Water

This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.

James A. Baldwin
White, World, Ethics
"This Lonesome Place" by Hilton Als, www.newyorker.com. January 29, 2001.

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
Work, Men, Fire

There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform

James A. Baldwin
Believe, Writing, Important

For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.

James A. Baldwin
Light, Darkness, Black

There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.

James A. Baldwin
People, Heaven, Hatred
"Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A Letter from Harlem". Essay by James A. Baldwin (1960), as quoted in "The Fire This Time" by David Remnick, www.newyorker.com. January 12, 2015.

Writing is a political instrument.

James A. Baldwin
Writing, Political, Instruments

Yr crown has been bought and paid for. All you have to do is put it on yr head

James A. Baldwin
Crowns, Has Beens, Paid

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