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James Baldwin Quotes

James Baldwin quotes

American Educator, Writer August 6, 1924 – November 30, 1987

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Quotes

I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do. And a piano is just a piano. It's made out of so much wood and wires and little hammers and big ones, and ivory. While there's only so much you can do with it, the only way to find this out is to try; to try and make it do everything. James Baldwin
It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-- ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. James Baldwin
To hold in the mind forever two ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first . . . acceptance totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are [;] . . . the second . . . that one must never, in one's life, accept . . . injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. James Baldwin
James Baldwin quote: "Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you..."
Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know. James Baldwin
I remembered that life in that room seemed to be occuring beneath the sea, time flowed past indiffrently above us, hours and days had no meaning. James Baldwin
One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. James Baldwin
In my case, I think my exile saved my life, for it inexorably confirmed something which Americans appear to have great difficulty accepting. Which is, simply, this: a man is not a man until he is able and willing to accept his own vision of the world, no matter how radically this vision departs from others. James Baldwin
To accept one’s past – one’s history – 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 Baldwin
James Baldwin quote: "The writer's only real task: to recreate out of the disorder..."
The writer's only real task: to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art James Baldwin
James Baldwin quote: "This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out..."
This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. James Baldwin
James Baldwin quote: "True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers, and in both..."
True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers, and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one's life James Baldwin
We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. James Baldwin
You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all. James Baldwin
Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life's possibilities. James Baldwin
The colors on the river faded, the rain began, and the river began to rise. It was apparent that the sun would soon give up the tremendous struggle it cost her to get to Paris for a few hours every day. James Baldwin

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