James Baldwin

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.
― James Baldwin

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.
― James Baldwin

All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.
― James Baldwin

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.
― James Baldwin

For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.
― James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues