Quotes from James A. Baldwin

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

It seems to be typical of life in America ... that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.

I'm beginning to think that maybe everything that happens makes sense. Like, if it didn't make sense, how could it happen?

I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.

She was twenty and had come to realize that, though she had a voice, she wasn't a singer; that to endure and embrace the life of a singer demands a whole lot more than a voice.

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, fire next time.

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.

The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see.

You're getting to be a big boy,' I said desperately, 'it's time you started thinking about your future.' 'I'm thinking about my future,' said Sonny, grimly. 'I think about it all the time.

It was as though we were a picture, trapped in time: this had been happening for hundreds of years, people sitting in a room, waiting for dinner, and listening to the blues.

There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment the time is always now.

And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time, and furthermore, to win.

Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

The trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.

Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love and be loved.

Great art can only be created out of love.

Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.

Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

Love is like the lightning, and your maturity is signaled by the extent to which you can accept the dangers and the power and the beauty of love.

But, when the chips are down, its better to be furious with someone you love, or frightened for someone you love, than be put through the merciless horror of being ashamed of someone you love.

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.

The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.

Those kids aren't dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don't get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.