James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – November 30, 1987) was a novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, and essayist, best known for his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. Most of Baldwin's work deals with racial and sexual issues in the mid-20th century United States. His novels are notable for the personal way in which they explore questions of identity as well as for the way in which they mine complex social and psychological pressures related to being black and homosexual, well before the social, cultural or political equality of these groups could be assumed.


Quotes By James Baldwin

I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor


Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.