The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.
James A. BaldwinThe occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through.
James A. BaldwinTo accept oneโs past โ oneโs history โ is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
James A. BaldwinMost of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.
James A. Baldwin