If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving. And, after all, one can give freedom only by setting someone free.
James A. BaldwinMy friend was about to introduce me when she looked at me and smiled and said, "Whose little boy are you?"
James A. BaldwinLove takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
James A. BaldwinIt is only because the world looks on his talent with such a frightening indifference that the artist is compelled to make his talent important.
James A. BaldwinThe civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the "sanctity" of human life, or the "conscience" of the civilized world.
James A. Baldwin