People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior. - James Baldwin

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Engraved portrait of James Baldwin, facing left

People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.

English
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About James Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin (2 August 1924 – 1 December 1987) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and social critic.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Allan warren (CC BY-SA)

Also Known As

Birth Name: James Arthur Baldwin
Alternative Names: Jimmy Baldwin

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Additional quotes by James Baldwin

She knows Daddy better than I do. I think it's because she's felt since we were children that our Daddy maybe loved me more than he loves her. This isn't true, and she knows that now — people love different people in different ways — but it must have seemed that way to her when we were little. I look as though I just can't make it, she looks like can't nothing stop her. If you look helpless, people react to you in one way and if you look strong, or just come on strong, people react to you in another way, and, since you don't see what they see, this can be very painful. I think that's why Sis was always in front of that damn mirror all the time, when we were kids. She was saying, 'I don't care. I got me.' Of course, this only made her come on stronger than ever, which was the last effect she desired: but that's the way we are and that's how we can sometimes get so fucked up. Anyway, she's past all that. She knows who she is, or, at least, she knows who she damn well isn't.

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