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It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.

James A. Baldwin

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James A. Baldwin
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You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. [and then you discover that others have suffered much more than you and your problems look good in comparison]
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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.
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There are people in the world for whom coming along is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.
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Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.
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Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity
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The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.
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I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.
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It is hard for anyone under twenty to realise that death has already assigned them a number, which is going to come up one day.
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You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.
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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.
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If all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination.
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It is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you know-which is the price of your performance and survival-you do not exist. It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you.
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It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
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He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.
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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, in a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly.
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Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.
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James A. Baldwin