787 Quotes by James Baldwin

You never had to look at me. I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Sometimes you were here all day long and you read or you opened the window or you cooked something - and I watched you - and you never said anything - and you looked at me with such eyes, as though you did not see me. All day, while I worked to make this room for you.

A mob is not autonomous: it executes the real will of the people who rule the State.

That summer, in any case, all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church.

...all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me...

Every white person in this country-and I do not care what he or she says-knows one thing. They may not know, as they put, "what I want",but they know they would not like to be black here.If they know that, then they know everything they need to know, and whatever else they say is a lie.

…not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour… – for the lack of it.

Ain't no such thing as a little fault or a big fault. Satan get his foot in the door, he ain't going to rest till he's in the room. You is in the Word or you ain't--ain't no halfway with God.

The real troubles with living is that living is so banal.