James Baldwin

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.

Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.