Quotes About Baldwin

Baldwin wrote in Notes of a Native Son that because he loved America "more than any other country in the world," he insisted on the right "to criticize her perpetually."49 Our love for black America demands no less.

I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others.

Baldwin, was awakened by the sound; but the most pressing danger could not prompt him to draw his sword in the defence of a city which he deserted, perhaps, with more pleasure than regret: he fled from the palace to the seashore, where he descried the welcome sails of the fleet returning from the vain and fruitless attempt on Daphnusia.

'A Talk to Teachers' is emblematic of Baldwin's proclivity for candor over political appeasement and, like much of his work, focusses on history and the American consciousness.

You know what Stanley Baldwin said about Churchill?" Baldwin, a Conservative, had been prime minister before Chamberlain. "When Winston was born, lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle with gifts—imagination, eloquence, industry, ability—and then came a fairy who said: 'No person has a right to so many gifts,' picked him up, and gave him such a shake and a twist that he was denied judgment and wisdom.

I thought of James Baldwin, retreating to Paris in order to catch his breath and be stronger in his fight against oppression back home. I wanted to stomp the earth and leave giant footprints. What is the point of living if you don't leave your mark?

Continuing high unemployment, the legacy of the General Strike and the Trade Disputes Act, and a long period in power had weakened the Baldwin Government, for which Churchill had some responsibility. Yet once more he was fortunate in his defeat: he would not have wanted to be chancellor of the Exchequer during the Wall Street Crash later that year.

White liberals weren't loud racists. They were simply racial philanthropists who, after a good deed, return to their suburban homes with their white picket fences or to their apartments in segregated cities with their consciences content. Baldwin was not shy about calling this out.

It makes for a galvanizing moment, with Baldwin moved to leave Paris by the cruelty visited on a child.

I think that much of this criticism fails to take seriously the continuity of themes running through Baldwin's body of work: that he continued to examine questions of American identity and history, railed against the traps of categories that narrowed our frames of reference, insisted that we reject the comfort and illusion of safety that the country's myths offered, and struggled mightily with the delicate balance between his advocacy and his art.

As with Dr. King, and Cleaver was explicit about his discomfort, Baldwin's queerness unsettled him.

Baldwin and King, no matter the temperamental distance between them, moved together as they struggled to make real the promise of American democracy. King was the preacher, Baldwin the poet—and, of course, the two are interchangeable.

I have no desire to run for public office.

I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but I damn know well what it ain't. How have we gotten so silly, I wonder. I get back off into Baldwin. I don't give a damn if Sag Harbor sags into oblivion. Me and James Baldwin are communicating. His fiction is more real than this reality.

Out of joy strength came, strength that was fashioned to bear sorrow: sorrow brought forth joy. Forever? This was Ezekiel's wheel, in the middle of the burning air forever -- and the little wheel ran by faith, and the big wheel ran by the grace of God.

Bookstores don't exactly dot the American highway in the grand manner of Sbarros.

I love James Baldwin essays, but also his novels. I recently read "Another Country." I couldn't believe how ahead of his time he was.

[James] Baldwin "was one of greatest intellectuals of his time. He was an important voice, period, not an important black voice."

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.

Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.

The draining away of James Baldwin's magic was a drama much discussed in the years leading up to his death in 1987 at the age of sixty-three.

The great thing about James Baldwin and his writing is that it's still fresh every time you pick it up. That's also the sad thing about his writing sometimes, too.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.

I like the Baldwin boys a great deal. Alec is super-smart, super-articulate, almost too smart to be an actor.