James A. Baldwin Quotes

The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

James A. Baldwin

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Quotes to Explore

• We think of writing a book as a process, but the very word - process - suggests that there is one: a template to follow, a map to guide us. If that were true, someone would have surely figured out some marketable method we could all buy.

  

  Hanya Yanagihara
  • Writing
  • Book
  • True

• How hard have those intolerant of John Adams's perspective worked to strip from young people any hope of knowing the concepts and truths that help deal with life?

  

  Foster Friess
  • People
  • Life
  • Help

• Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.

  

  Iris Murdoch
  • Taken
  • Serious
  • Human

• Parenting is an impossible job at any age.

  

  Harrison Ford
  • Job
  • Age
  • Parenting

• Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

  

  Oprah Winfrey
  • Path
  • Choose
  • Privilege

• I'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.

  

  Tahar Ben Jelloun
  • Thought
  • Security
  • Sexuality

• There are now hundreds of thousands of new engineers that are being trained in China. If people start finding themselves losing their jobs, not to the Chinese here but because China has become such a dominant force - then there could very well be a backlash.

  

  Iris Chang
  • People
  • Start
  • Chinese

• My dad's name is Vernon and my mom liked the initials, V. V. My sisters and I got named Victoria, Valerie and Vincent so we'd be V. V.'s, too. But, then when you start getting pets' names that start with a 'v,' it's a little embarrassing.

  

  Vince Vaughn
  • Dad
  • Mom
  • Start

• England really is the birthplace, the heart and soul of football. If Barcelona had Liverpool's fans, or Arsenal's, or United's, we'd have won 20 Champions Leagues, hahaha!

  

  Xavi
  • Heart
  • Soul
  • Football

• I think feminism's a bit misinterpreted. It was about casting off all gender roles. There's nothing wrong with a man holding a door open for a girl. But we sort of threw away all the rules, so everybody's confused. And dating becomes a sloppy, uncomfortable, unpleasant thing.

  

  Zosia Mamet
  • Man
  • Girl
  • Door

• It takes the pressure off of your better players to know they don't always have to be on top of their game for the team to do well.

  

  Cal Hubbard
  • Game
  • Team
  • Pressure

• I love boliche, roasted pig, and black beans and rice. When I need a quick fix, I head to Cafe Cortadito on Avenue B and 3rd here in New York City.

  

  Narciso Rodriguez
  • Head
  • Fix
  • Quick

• I think one of my first jokes - in the black community, there's people who have jokes about skin tone. People like, 'You so black, you purple.' 'You so black, you gotta smile so we can see you at night.'

  

  Hannibal Buress
  • People
  • Night
  • Black

• Every European goes on the streets and sees medieval churches. Not if you live in Indianapolis.

  

  Umberto Eco
  • Live
  • You
  • Streets

• Everybody in America who didn't come over the Bering Strait ice bridge stole his land from somebody else.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • America
  • Bridge
  • Ice

• My acting coach makes the impossible accessible.

  

  Karolina Kurkova
  • Acting
  • Impossible
  • Coach

• In my stories, whenever there's somebody wonderful and charming and bright and intelligent, that's me!

  

  Maeve Binchy
  • Stories
  • Intelligent
  • Wonderful

• For some days, people thought that India was shaking. But there are always tremors when a great tree falls.

  

  Rajiv Gandhi
  • People
  • Great
  • Thought

• Whether you do stand-up comedy or write a story, you have a duty to deliver. As a comedian, you walk out on stage, and you have a minute to hook them, or they'll start booing. As a writer, it's very similar. A reader doesn't have time to say, 'I'll give him 50 pages, as it's not very good yet, but I hope it'll get better.'

  

  Mark Billingham
  • Up
  • Time
  • Good

• When I was a kid in the '50s, during the Eisenhower years, everything seemed to be working fine. I don't recall as a teenager ever worrying about the state of the future world.

  

  Lois Lowry
  • World
  • Future
  • Teenager

• In the way our Fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction . . . . All I have asked or desired anywhere, is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the Fathers of our government originally placed it upon.

  

  Abraham Lincoln
  • Question
  • Government
  • Fathers

• The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now.

  

  James A. Baldwin
  • Future
  • Heaven