The celebrity never sees himself. I have some idea what I’m doing on that stage; above all, I have some idea what sustains me on that stage. But the celebrity is not exactly Jimmy, though he comes out of Jimmy and Jimmy nourishes that, too. I can see now, with hindsight, that I would’ve had to become a celebrity in order to survive.
~ James Baldwin
:::
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
~ James Baldwin
:::
It’s no credit to this enormously rich country that there are more oppressive, less decent governments elsewhere. We claim superiority of our institutions. We ought to live up to our own standards, not use misery elsewhere as an endless source of self-gratification and justification.
~ James Baldwin
:::
I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
~ James Baldwin
:::
People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.
~ James Baldwin
:::
Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent — which attitude certainly has a great deal to support it.
~ James Baldwin
:::
If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving.
~ James Baldwin
:::
If the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.
~ James Baldwin
:::