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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

James A. Baldwin

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James A. Baldwin
Pain
History
Think
Thinking
World
Heartbreak
Unprecedented
Empathy
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More quotes by James A. Baldwin

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What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really seem to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free.
James A. Baldwin
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We do not trust educated people and rarely, alas, produce them, for we do not trust the independence of mind which alone makes a genuine education possible.
James A. Baldwin
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You don't need numbers you need passion, and this is proven by the history of the world!
James A. Baldwin
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James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them.
James A. Baldwin
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Writing is a political instrument.
James A. Baldwin
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There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment the time is always now.
James A. Baldwin
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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
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Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them for what they are.
James A. Baldwin
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Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.
James A. Baldwin
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The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible.
James A. Baldwin
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
James A. Baldwin
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The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.
James A. Baldwin
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Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
James A. Baldwin
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There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.
James A. Baldwin
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The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.
James A. Baldwin
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The impossible is the least that one can demand.
James A. Baldwin
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It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.
James A. Baldwin
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Secrets hidden at the heart of midnight are simply waiting to be dragged to the light, as, on some unlucky high noon, they always are. But secrets shrouded in the glare of candor are bound to defeat even the most determined and agile inspector for the light is always changing and proves that the eye cannot be trusted.
James A. Baldwin
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If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.
James A. Baldwin
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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