James Baldwin

"Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves."

"Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles"

"When one begins looking for influences one finds them by the score. I haven't thought much about my own, not enough anyway; I hazard that the King James Bible, the rhetoric of the store-front church, …"

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."

"If the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it."

"I am beginning to feel like part of a travelling circus."

"Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to…"

"One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found — and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the ligh…"