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. BaldwinHe may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.
James A. BaldwinBut to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same thing as walking on the road; the perspective to say the very least, changes only with the journey; only when the road has, all abruptly and treacherously, and with an absoluteness that permits no argument, turned or dropped or risen is one able to see all that one could not have seen from any other place.
James A. Baldwin