I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
~ James Baldwin

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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
~ James Baldwin

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Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
~ James Baldwin

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It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
~ James Baldwin

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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

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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

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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

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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

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