To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.
James A. BaldwinThe trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
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. BaldwinIt is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you know-which is the price of your performance and survival-you do not exist. It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you.
James A. Baldwin