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An American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa.

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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I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.
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Life is more important than art that's what makes art important.
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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.
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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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Not only was I not born to be a slave I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.
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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.
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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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Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality.
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At four o'clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.
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Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.
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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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We can make America what America must become.
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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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Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
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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.
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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.
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When the South has trouble with its Negroes - when the Negroes refuse to remain in their place - it blames outside agitators and Northern interference. When the nation has trouble with the Northern Negro, it blames the Kremlin.
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