Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. – James Baldwin
Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field. – James Baldwin
The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. – James Baldwin
It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless. – James Baldwin
Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing. To morals belong the lower and less intellectual spheres. – Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891