Quotes from James Arthur Baldwin

In order to act, you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.

Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need a sense of life's possibilities.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given Freedom is something that people take and people are as free as they want to be.

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didnt have it and thought of other things if you did.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

The price one pays for pursuing a profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

The price we pay when pursuing any art or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

To defend one's self against fear is simply to ensure that one will, one day, be conquered by it fears must be faced.

You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way ... people look at reality, then you can change it.

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; Freedom is something that people take and people are as free as they want to be.

Love is the bread of life: you have to make it everyday if you want it fresh.

Love is a beggar who stills begs when one has given him everything

Love is a sweet tyranny, because the lover endureth his torments willingly.

The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.