James A. Baldwin Quotes About Literature

Quotes about: Literature

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Hate, Men, Law

• Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours.

  James A. Baldwin

  Inspirational, Success, Broken Heart

  "James Baldwin's much anticipated new novel - archive" by Hugh Hebert, www.theguardian.com. June 18, 2016.

• Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

  James A. Baldwin

  Heart, Evil, Imagination

  "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy". "Esquire" Magazine, May 1961.

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Beautiful, Literature, American History

  "James Baldwin’s Lesson for Teachers in a Time of Turmoil" by Clint Smith, www.newyorker.com. September 23, 2017.

• People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

  James A. Baldwin

  Respect, People, Water

  "No Name in the Street". Book by James A. Baldwin, 1972.

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Men, White, Black

  "Letter from a Region in My Mind" by James Baldwin, www.newyorker.com. November 17, 1962.

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Country, African American, Literature

  "A race riot forever changed my city. Hollywood only told half the story" by Bankole Thompson, www.theguardian.com. August 28, 2017.

• You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way... people look at reality, then you can change it.

  James A. Baldwin

  Change, Writing, Reality

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

• 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

  Writing, Editors, Literature

  "Notes of a Native Son". Book by James A. Baldwin, archive.nytimes.com. 1955.

• People can cry much easier than they can change.

  James A. Baldwin

  Change, People, Self Improvement

  "James Baldwin Back Home" by Robert Coles, archive.nytimes.com. July 31, 1977.

• 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

  Eye, Men, Attention

• To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

  James A. Baldwin

  Literature, Danger, Committed

  "A Letter to My Nephew" by James Baldwin, progressive.org. January 1, 1962.

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Time, Memories, Future

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

  James A. Baldwin

  Change, Literature, Human Nature

  "As Much Truth As One Can Bear". The New York Times Book Review, January 14, 1962.

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

  James A. Baldwin

  People, Culture, Literature

• When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

  James A. Baldwin

  Literature, Habit, Live By

• I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

  James A. Baldwin

  Honesty, Men, Literature

  "Notes of a Native Son". Book by James A. Baldwin, archive.nytimes.com. 1955.

• 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

  Keys, Diversity, Literature

• 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

  Writing, Greed, Needs

  1961 Nobody Knows My Name,'Alas, Poor Richard'.

• 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

  Truth, Roots, Literature

• The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

  James A. Baldwin

  Love, Ambition, Literature

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