787 Quotes by James Baldwin

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.

His touch could never fail to make me feel desire; yet his hot, sweet breath also made me want to vomit.

Non serve cercar di andare troppo a fondo in questo mistero che è tanto poco semplice quanto poco innocuo. Non sappiamo abbastanza di noi stessi. Credo sia meglio esser consci di non saperne niente, così si può crescere con il mistero e intanto il mistero cresce in te. Ma la giorno d’oggi, naturalmente, tutti sanno tutto ed è per questo che tanta gente si perde.

It is quite impossible to write a worth-while novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse, unhappily, to function in so neat and one-dimensional a fashion.

One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found—and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is.

Then John knew that a curse was renewed from moment to moment, from father to son. Time was indifferent, like snow and ice; but the heart, crazed wanderer in the driving waste, carried the curse forever.

A child is too self-centered to relate to any dilemma that does not, somehow relate to him.

If we know, and do nothing, we are worse that the murderers hired in our name. If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own - which it is - and render impasssable with our bodies the corridor the the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.