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The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

James A. Baldwin

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James A. Baldwin
Art
Primary
States
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Necessarily
Creativity
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Alone
Actively
State
Cultivate
Artist
Primaries

More quotes by James A. Baldwin

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The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.
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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.
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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
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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.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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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.
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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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The impossible is the least that one can demand.
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When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.
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I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.
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A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.
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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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One writes out of one thing only - one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.
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The challenge is in the moment the time is always now.
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The states of birth, suffering, love, and death, are extreme states: extreme, universal, and inescapable. We all know this, but we would rather not know it. The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we are all prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge. - James Baldwin, The Creative Process
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Women manage, quite brilliantly, on the whole, and to stunning and unforeseeable effect, to survive and surmount being defined by others. They dismiss the definition, however dangerous or wounding it may be-- or even, sometimes, find a way to utilize it.
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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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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
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Tell me, he said, What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. what are they waiting for? Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel. And when you have waited—-has it made you sure?
James A. Baldwin