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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.

James A. Baldwin

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James A. Baldwin
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More quotes by James A. Baldwin

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If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
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Color is not a human or a personal reality it is a political reality.
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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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All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
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Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his.
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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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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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Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
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He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.
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I don't know, now, when I first looked at Hella and found her stale, found her body uninteresting, her presence grating. It seemed to happen all at once—I suppose that only means that it had been happening for a long time.
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James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them.
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If all you want to do is make money, the very last thing you need is imagination.
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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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When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.
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Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.
James A. Baldwin
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White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this - which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never - the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.
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To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.
James A. Baldwin
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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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Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
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I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.
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