When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living. – James Baldwin
There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention. – James Baldwin
Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. – James Baldwin
You know, its not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself. – James Baldwin
There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition. – Joseph Joubert (1754–1824), translated from French by George H. Calvert, 1
Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isnt fiction at all. – Theodore Sturgeon