Quotes from James Baldwin

Neither love nor terror makes one blind; indifference makes one blind.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced. As for one's wits, it is just not true that one can live by them – not, that is, if one wishes really to live.

When Malcolm X, who is considered the movement's second-in-command, and heir apparent, points out that the cry of "violence" was not raised, for example, when the Israelis fought to regain Israel, and, indeed, is raised only when black men indicate that they will fight for their rights, he is speaking the truth. The

I will smile at you when you wake up.

pavements and banging from the walls of houses with

hands which would have the power to crush me and make me whole again.

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we—and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others—do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

You are evil, you know, and sometimes when you smiled at me I hated you. I wanted to strike you. I wanted to make you bleed. You smiled at me the way you smiled at everyone, you told me what you told everyone — and you tell nothing but lies.

Only time might help, time which surrendered all secrets but only on the inexorable condition, as far as he could tell, that the secret could no longer be used.

Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations. You, don't be afraid.

I've known him all my life and I hope I always know him.

Perhaps he had supposed that my growing up would bring us closer together—whereas, now that he was trying to find out something about me, I was in full flight from him. I did not want him to know me. I did not want anyone to know me.

The blacks now suspected him of being an ally—though not a friend, never a friend!

Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you weaker,' [...] 'and so you can stand less and less.

And, in fact, the truth about the black man, as a historical entity and as a human being, has been hidden from him, deliberately and cruelly; the power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions

All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap and immobilize you in the role you play; and it is not always easy—in fact, it is always extremely hard—to maintain a kind of watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.

For a woman,' she said, 'I think a man is always a stranger. And there's something awful about being at the mercy of a stranger.

Again, the terms "civilized" and "Christian" begin to have a very strange ring, particularly in the ears of those who have been judged to be neither civilized nor Christian, when a Christian nation surrenders to a foul and violent orgy, as Germany did during the Third Reich.

the lady is a wonder daughter of the thunder smashing cages legislating rages with the voice of ages singing us through.

But the Negro's experience of the white world cannot possibly create in him any respect for the standards by which the white world claims to live. His own condition is overwhelming proof that white people do not live by these standards.

men may be at the mercy of women - I think men like that idea, it strokes the misogynist in them.

If the world wasn't so full of dead folks maybe those of us that's trying to live wouldn't have to suffer so bad.

I think you've got to be truthful about the life you have. Otherwise, there's no possibility of achieving the life you want.

Fighting will not make you stay. In French, we have what is called une séparation de corps—not a divorce, you understand, just a separation. Well. We will separate. But I know you belong with me. I believe, I must believe—that you will come back.