#s

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. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#day #down #each #earth #go

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

— James A. Baldwin

#exalts #future #go #heaven #like

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

— James A. Baldwin

#calling #intimate #intimate knowledge #knowledge #pays

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#dealing #dreadful #eyes #few #few things

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#born #changed #changes #eager #go

A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way. ↗

— Honore de Balzac

#first #himself #his #husband #lover

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure. ↗

— Jane Austen

#past #pleasure #remembrance #past

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#any #born #conspiracy #cultivation #feels

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

— James A. Baldwin

#control #describing #every #function #language

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#become #begin #experience #illuminate #key