The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.
James A. BaldwinThe responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.
James A. BaldwinWe do not trust educated people and rarely, alas, produce them, for we do not trust the independence of mind which alone makes a genuine education possible.
James A. BaldwinUnless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success.
James A. Baldwin