5 James Baldwin Quotes on Truth

James Baldwin quotes on truth

15. Art has to be a kind of confession. I don't mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too - the terms with which they are connected to other people.

39. I have never seen myself as a spokesman. I am a witness. In the church in which I was raised you were supposed to bear witness to the truth. Now, later on, you wonder what in the world the truth is, but you do know what a lie is.

47. Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

50. We have all had the experience of finding that our reactions and perhaps even our deeds have denied beliefs we thought were ours.

51. When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I can only tell you about yourself as much as I can face about myself.