James A. Baldwin

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

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

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

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.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

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.

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

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.