The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. – James Baldwin
The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid the state of being alone. – James Baldwin
The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an immediate knowledge of its ugly side. – James Baldwin
Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden. – James Baldwin