James A. Baldwin Quotes - Page 13

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• 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

  Men, Black, Faces

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• No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

  James A. Baldwin

  Time, Firsts, Happens

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• At bottom, to be colored means that one has been caught in some utterly unbelievable cosmic joke, a joke so hideous and in such bad taste that it defeats all categories and definitions.

  James A. Baldwin

  Mean, Race, Taste

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• A man's balance depends on the weight he carries between his legs.

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, Balance, Weight

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• We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

  James A. Baldwin

  Fake People, Deeds, Belief

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• Being in the pulpit, was like being in the theatre; I was behind the scenes and knew how the illusion worked.

  James A. Baldwin

  Theatre, Behind The Scenes, Illusion

  "Letter from a Region in My Mind" by James Baldwin, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

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• But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.

  James A. Baldwin

  Grief, Keys, Punishment

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• People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.

  James A. Baldwin

  People, Treated, Various

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• Such figures as Boy George do not disturb me nearly so much as do those relentlessly hetero (sexual?) keepers of the keys and seals, those who know what the world needs in the way of order and who are ready and willing to supply that order.

  James A. Baldwin

  Boys, Keys, Order

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• You write in order to change the world.

  James A. Baldwin

  Writing, Order, World

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• 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

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• People said that he was very nice, but I confess that his utter grotesqueness made me uneasy; perhaps in the same way that the sight of monkeys eating their own excrement turns some people’s stomachs. They might not mind so much if monkeys did not- so grotesquely- resemble human beings.

  James A. Baldwin

  Nice, Sight, People

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• The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood

  James A. Baldwin

  Black And White, Boys, Cowboy

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• There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that *they* must accept *you*. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love.

  James A. Baldwin

  Mean, White, People

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• 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

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• 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

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Thinking, People, Feelings

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• 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

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Life, Art, Important

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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

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• There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.

  James A. Baldwin

  Splendor, Desolation, Fearful

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• 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.

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• 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.

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