Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to ones beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses. – James Baldwin
Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned. – James Baldwin
James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare– but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history in trapped in them. – James Baldwin
The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. – James Baldwin
Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. – Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers: A Discourse of Flowers