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American Academy of Arts and Letters

is necessarily a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artist, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story... to vomit the anguish up.

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artist, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story... to vomit the anguish up. (James Baldwin)

's primary distinction is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.

is tasked with illuminating the darkness that is the great wilderness of himself, blazing roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of art's purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed . . . But the conquest of the physical world is not man's only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place. James A. Baldwin

is not very good at listening to its elders, but it never fails to imitate them.

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

is nothing less than the recorded and visible effects on a body of people of what they've been forced to deal.

Culture was not a community basket weaving project, nor yet an act of God... being nothing more or less than the recorded and visible effects on a body of people of the vicissitudes with which they had been forced to deal (p. 140)

is indoctrination if you're white,  subjugation if you're black.

Education is indoctrination if you're white subjugation if you're black.

is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

can be improved in one way only: by pushing it out of existence. 

A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence. Nobody Knows My Name BALDWIN, James (1924 )

is clung to so stubbornly because once hate is gone, one feels one will be forced to deal with pain.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.James A. Baldwin

is something which destroys so much, and never fails to destroy the man who hated.

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

is that which people are trapped in, and that which is trapped in people.

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

is perhaps not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition. James A. Baldwin

is something you don't have until you leave it, and once you have left it, you never can go back.

You don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back. James A. Baldwin

is the idea that regardless of what white people may feel on an individual level, the state of their institutions, be it the church, the union, the real estate lobby, the board of education), exclude blacks.

I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions. I don't know if white Christians hate Negroes or not, but I know that we have a Christian church which is white and a Christian church which is black. I know as Malcolm X once put it, ''The most segregated hour in America is high noon on Sunday.'' That says a great deal to me about a Christian nation. It means that I can't afford to trust most white Christians and certainly cannot trust the Christian church. I don't know whether the labor unions and their bosses really hate me. That doesn't matter. But I know that I'm not in their unions. I don't know if the real estate lobby has anything against black people, but I know the real estate lobby keeps me in the ghetto. I don't know if the board of education hates black people, but I know the textbooks they give my children to read and the schools that we go to. Now this is the evidence! You want me to make an act of faith risking myself, my wife, my woman, my sister, my children on some idealism which you assure me exist in America which I have never seen. [Emphasis added.]

is like sex in that in that you think of nothing else f you have it you and of other things if you do.

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.

is a city that ill-equips one to deal with any other city. No other city is so spitefully incoherent.

Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. Whereas other cities flaunt there history their presumed glory in vividly placed monuments, squares, parks, plaques, and boulevards, such history as New York has been unable entirely to obliterate is to be found, mainly, in the backwaters of Wall Street, in the goat tracks of Old and West Broadway, in and around Washington Square, and, for the relentless searcher, in grimly inaccessible regions of The Bronx. James A. Baldwin

is, in contrast to Paris where one feels all the time gone by, a place where everything is in movement and one feels 'all the time to come.'.

Well,' I said, 'Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn't what you feel in New York 'He was smiling. I stopped. 'What do you feel in New York'' he asked. 'Perhaps you feel,' I told him, 'all the time to come. There's such power there, everything is in such movement. You can't help wondering I can't help wondering what it will all be like many years from now. James A. Baldwin

is spitefully incoherent. For the new yorker, all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud.

Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. James Baldwin

is a city that it is perfectly possible to be enamored of while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French.

It is perfectly possible to be enamored of Paris while remaining totally indifferent or even hostile to the French. James A. Baldwin

is the way of people who have no hope for themselves or for others and who think the human race is beneath their notice.

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

James BaldwinThinkers

James Baldwin