People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears - not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy.
James A. BaldwinAnyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.
James A. BaldwinPrecisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
James A. BaldwinThe relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others in order to end the racial nightmare and acheive our country.
James A. BaldwinAll over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying desperately to find a place to stand; and the wonder is not that so many are ruined but that so many survive.
James A. Baldwin