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At four o'clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.

James A. Baldwin

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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.
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People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.
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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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There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.
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A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.
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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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Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality.
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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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Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love and be loved.
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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.
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You've got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.
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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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But, when the chips are down, its better to be furious with someone you love, or frightened for someone you love, than be put through the merciless horror of being ashamed of someone you love.
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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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Yet I also suspected that what I was seeing was but a part of the truth and perhaps not even the most important part beneath these faces, these clothes, accents, rudenesses, was power and sorrow, both unadmitted, unrealized, the power of inventors, the sorrow of the disconnected.
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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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The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.
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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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The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
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You don't realize that you're intelligent until it gets you into trouble.
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