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 arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply. – James Baldwin
The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. – James Baldwin
An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience. – James Baldwin
If youre treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real theyre real for you whether theyre real or not. – James Baldwin
Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man–yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it. – Marcus Antonius