#v

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#been #books #connected #ever #had

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#culture #having #heavy #into #paid

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. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#appalling #everybody #everything #greed #needs

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#did #end #failure #hide #i

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#foresee #impossible #larger #never #person

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone. ↗

— James Baldwin

#alone #artist #avoid #being #being alone

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses. ↗

— James Baldwin

#beliefs #confronted #driven #equal #excesses

I regard the principle of conscription of life as a flat contradiction of all our cherished ideals of individual freedom, democratic liberty and Christian teaching. ↗

— Roger Nash Baldwin

#christian #conscription #contradiction #democratic #flat

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly. ↗

— James Baldwin

#beauty #because #here #live #lived

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian. ↗

— James Baldwin

#find #five #gary #great #indian