A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.
James A. BaldwinWhatever you describe to another person is also a revelation of who you are and who you think you are. You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.
James A. BaldwinThe trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
James A. BaldwinI think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.
James A. BaldwinMost 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. BaldwinEach of us, helplessly and forever, contains the other - male in female, female in male, white in black, and black in white. We are part of each other. Many of my countrymen appear to find this fact exceedingly inconvenient and even unfair, and so, very often, do I. But none of us can do anything about it.
James A. Baldwin