When youโre writing, youโre trying to find out something which you donโt know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you donโt want to know, what you donโt want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.
James A. BaldwinAfter departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love. So many things, so many people, depart! And we can only repossess them in our minds.
James A. BaldwinAn identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.
James A. BaldwinSometimes you hear a person speak the truth and you know that they are speaking the truth. But you also know that they have not heard themselves, do not know what they have said: do not know that they have revealed much more than they have said. This may be why the truth remains, on the whole, so rare.
James A. Baldwin