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The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.

James A. Baldwin

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James A. Baldwin
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More quotes by James A. Baldwin

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The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.
James A. Baldwin
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Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated – in the main, abominably – because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.
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Great art can only be created out of love.
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.
James A. Baldwin
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
James A. Baldwin
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We are very cruelly trapped between what we would like to be and what we actually are. And we cannot possibly become what we would like to be until we are willing to ask ourselves just why the lives we lead on this continent are mainly so empty, so tame, and so ugly.
James A. Baldwin
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You don't realize that you're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.
James A. Baldwin
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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.
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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When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.
James A. Baldwin
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If you're treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they're real for you whether they're real or not.
James A. Baldwin
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Life is more important than art that's what makes art important.
James A. Baldwin
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You're getting to be a big boy,' I said desperately, 'it's time you started thinking about your future.' 'I'm thinking about my future,' said Sonny, grimly. 'I think about it all the time.
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 be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success.
James A. Baldwin
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Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
James A. Baldwin
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America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep.
James A. Baldwin
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A real writer is always shifting and changing and searching.
James A. Baldwin
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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.
James A. Baldwin
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The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.
James A. Baldwin
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Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.
James A. Baldwin