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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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James A. Baldwin
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More quotes by James A. Baldwin

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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
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You don't need numbers you need passion, and this is proven by the history of the world!
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All racists are irresponsible.
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A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.
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It seems to be typical of life in America ... that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.
James A. Baldwin
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The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.
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Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
James A. Baldwin
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We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be.
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It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.
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I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
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Writing is a political instrument.
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I think that the inability to love is the central problem, because that inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is the terror of being touched. And if you can't be touched, you can't be changed. And if you can't be changed, you can't be alive.
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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A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.
James A. Baldwin
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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
James A. Baldwin
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Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
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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]
James A. Baldwin
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The greatest significance of the present student generation is that it is through them that the point of view of the subjugated is finally and inexorably being expressed.
James A. Baldwin