Top 57 Quotes by James A. Baldwin

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.

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.

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

You know, it's not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

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

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

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

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

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