James Baldwin

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone. ↗

— James Baldwin

#alone #artist #avoid #being #being alone

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly. ↗

— James Baldwin

#beauty #because #here #live #lived

It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless. ↗

— James Baldwin

#helpless #man #rare #very #who

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience. ↗

— James Baldwin

#experience #faces #his #identity #person

The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black. ↗

— James Baldwin

#important #people #reason #think #white

Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses. ↗

— James Baldwin

#beliefs #confronted #driven #equal #excesses

The paradox of education is precisely this; that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. ↗

— James Baldwin

#begins #being #conscious #educated #education

If you're treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they're real for you whether they're real or not. ↗

— James Baldwin

#being #being real #certain #certain things #certain way

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. ↗

— James Baldwin

#him #people #produced #responsibility #who

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land. ↗

— James Baldwin

#american #any #begins #himself #his