787 Quotes by James Baldwin

I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.

I had discovered, through ugly experience, what they were like when they held the power and what they were like when you held the power.

ou think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read

The dream of safety dies hard.

It does seem - well, difficult - to be at the mercy of some gross, unshaven stranger before you can begin to be yourself.

For here you were, Big James, named for me—you were a big baby, I was not—here you were, to be loved. To be loved, baby, hard, at once, and forever, to strengthen you against the loveless world.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.