James Baldwin

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.