Best James Baldwin Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“He was waiting, I think, for me to cross that space and take him in my arms again—waiting, as one waits at a deathbed for the miracle one dare not disbelieve, which will not happen.”

Waiting Sad Simile James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Starcrossed Lovers

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“But she saw nothing in my eyes—she stared at me as though I had made a long journey on a white charger all the way to her prison house.”

Simile Gender Roles Romantic Relationship Miscommunication Knight In Shining Armor James Baldwin Giovanni S Room

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“Beneath these faces, these clothes, accents, rudeness, was power and sorrow, both unadmitted, unrealized, the power of inventors, the sorrow of the disconnected.”

People Life Power Connection James Baldwin

Author:James Baldwin

“Whose little boy are you?”

God Religion Black Church Youth Racism African American Coming Of Age Renaissance Epiphany Harlem Institution James Baldwin

Book:The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

“Jimmy said, "We survived slavery. Think about that. Not because we were strong. The American Indians were strong, and they were on their own land. But they have not survived genocide. You know how we survived?" I said nothing. "We put surviving into our poems and into our songs. We put it into our folk tales. We danced surviving in Congo Square in New Orleans and put it in our pots when we cooked pinto beans. We wore surviving on our backs when we clothed ourselves in the colors of the rainbow. We were pulled down so low we could hardly lift our eyes, so we knew, if we wanted to survive, we had better lift our own spirits. So we laughed whenever we got the chance.”

Art Humor Survival Slavery Genocide African Americans Blacks Native Americans James Baldwin

Book:A Song Flung Up to Heaven

Source: A Song Flung Up to Heaven

“He smiled, "Why, you will go home and then you will find that home is not home anymore. Then you will really be in trouble. As long as you stay here, you can always think: One day I will go home." He played with my thumb and grinned. "N'est-ce pas?" "Beautiful logic," I said. "You mean I have a home to go to as long as I don't go there?" He laughed. "Well, isn't it true? You don't have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.”

Home Dialogue Paradox James Baldwin Giovanni S Room

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“I loved her as much as ever and I still did not know how much that was.”

Love Relationship Confused Uncertain Romantic Relationship James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Conflicted

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“I do not know what I would do if you left me." For the first time I felt the suggestion of a threat in his voice—or I put it there. "I have been alone so long—I do not think I would be able to live if I had to be alone again.”

Relationship Threat Alone Suicidal Romantic Relationship James Baldwin Giovanni S Room

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“And with every step I took it became more impossible for me to turn back. And my mind was empty—or it was as though my mind had become one enormous, anaesthetized wound. I thought only, One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry.”

Sorrow Sad Leaving Grieving Numb No Turning Back James Baldwin Giovanni S Room

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“No matter how it seems now, I must confess: I loved him. I do not think that I will ever love anyone like that again. And this might be a great relief if I did not also know that, when the knife has fallen, Giovanni, if he feels anything will feel relief.”

Love Sad Relief Confession Declaration Of Love One True Love James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Never Again One And Only

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“I had to get out of there for my face showed too much, the war in my body was dragging me down. My feet refused to carry me over to him again. The wind of my life was blowing me away.”

Life Sad Separation Breakup Goodbye Inner Turmoil James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Leave Taking

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“On each piece of paper I found addresses, telephone numbers, memos of various rendezvous made and kept—or perhaps not kept—people met and remembered, or perhaps not remembered, hopes probably not fulfilled: certainly not fulfilled, or I would not have been standing on that street corner.”

Regret Sad Melancholy Unfulfilled James Baldwin Giovanni S Room

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“The news of [James Baldwin's] death reached me in Trinidad around midnight. I was lecturing in the country about African-American literature and liberation, longevity and love, commitment and courage. I could not sleep. I got up and walked out of my hotel room into a night filled with stars. And I sat down in the park and talked to him. About the world. About his work. How grateful we all are that he walked on the earth, that he breathed, that he preached, that he came toward us baptizing us with his holy words. And some of us were saved because of him. Harlem man. Genius. Piercing us with his eyes and his pen. How to write of this beautiful big-eyed man who took on the country with his words? How to make anyone understand his beauty in a country that hates Blacks?”

America Poetry Poem Writers Remembrance African Americans Blacks James Baldwin

Book:Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems

Source: Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems

“When I first saw [James Baldwin] on television in the early sixties, I felt immediately a kinship with this man whose anger and disappointment with America's contradictions transformed his face into a warrior's face, whose tongue transformed our massacres into triumphs. And he left behind a hundred TV deaths: scholars, writers, teachers, and journalists shipwrecked by his revivals and sermons. And the Black audiences watched and shouted amen and felt clean and conscious and chosen.”

America Poetry Poem Remembrance African Americans Blacks James Baldwin

Book:Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems

Source: Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems

“No. I was not okay. And neither was James Baldwin though his essays Were perfect spinning platters of comprehension of the fight To assert humanness in a black and white world.”

Poetry Race Poem African Americans Essays Blacks Race Relations James Baldwin Being Ok

Book:An American Sunrise

Source: An American Sunrise

“The morning weighs on my shoulders with the dreadful weight of hope and I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me and tear it slowly into many pieces, watching them dance in the wind, watching the wind carry them away. Yet, as I turn and begin walking toward the waiting people, the wind blows some of them back on me.”

Hope Sad Symbolism Ending Last Lines James Baldwin Giovanni S Room

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“Qualcuno", disse Jacques, "tuo padre o il mio, ci avrebbe dovuto dire che non sono mai state molte le persone morte d'amore. Ma milioni di persone sono morte e stanno morendo ora dopo ora - e nei luoghi più strani! - per mancanza d'amore".”

Amore James Baldwin La Stanza Di Giovanni

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“Because even if I should speak, no one would believe me. And they would not believe me precisely because they would know that what I said was true.”

Caste Caste System James Baldwin Isabel Wilkerson

Author:James Baldwin

“Since we live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal, I have been making as much noise as I can, here in Europe, on radio and television—in fact, have just returned from a land, Germany, which was made notorious by a silent majority not so very long ago.”

James Baldwin Angela Davis Angela Davis Letter

Author:James Baldwin

“Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you weaker," said Giovanni, as though he had not heard me, "and so you can stand less and less.”

Life Bad James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Weaker Weakened

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“One of these days," he said. "Everything bad will happen—one of these days.”

Bad Pessimistic Ominous James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Anticipatory Portent

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room

“Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love. It is a remarkable process. It is far more terrible than anything I have ever read about it, more terrible than anything I will ever be able to say.”

Love Hate Terrible Sad Hatred James Baldwin Giovanni S Room Love To Hate

Book:Giovanni’s Room

Source: Giovanni’s Room