Evidence of Things Not Seen Quotes

“Yet, what the memory repudiates controls the human being. What one does not remember dictates who one loves or fails to love. What one does not remember dictates, actually, whether one plays poker, pool, or chess. What one does not remember contains the key to one’s tantrums or one’s poise. What one does not remember is the serpent in the garden of one’s dreams. What one does not remember is the key to one’s performance in the toilet or in bed. What one does not remember contains the only hope, danger, trap, inexorability, of love—only love can help you recognize what you do not remember.”
― James Baldwin, Evidence of Things Not Seen

“is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you know—which is the price of your performance and survival—you do not exist. It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you.”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“Hence, the Republic has absolutely no image, or standard, of masculinity to which any man, Black or White, can honorably aspire.”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“In a world made hideous by man-made poverty and obscenely senseless war, it is hard to predict the future of money: when the South African miner leaves the mines, what happens to the price of gold?”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“shining Republic knows nothing about them and cares nothing about them—recognizes their existence only in time of stress, as during a military adventure, say, or an election year, or when their dangerous situation erupts into what the Republic generally calls a “riot.” And it goes without saying that these communities, incipient, wounded, or functioning, are between the carrot and the stick of the American Dream.”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“No power under heaven can force the landlord to invest a penny in the upkeep of his property, and, if you think you can’t get blood from a stone, watch salesmen of every description operating in the ghetto. Buy a bedroom suite in Harlem, or anything else, on the installment plan—”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“the State (and, for the State, a nigger is a nigger is a nigger, sometimes Mr. or Mrs. or Dr. Nigger),”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“How, then, does it happen—legally—that a man charged with two murders can be tried for twenty-eight?”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“The South, however, and the nation, are full of people who look White and are Black: some claim their ancestry and some seal it off with a change of address, nor are their new neighbors likely to challenge their identity, being so uncertain of their own. In the United States, as in South Africa, one’s color is a matter of the legal definition, and/or experience, and/or, finally, choice.”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition

“A Black policeman could completely demolish you. He knew far more about you than a White policeman could and you were without defense before this Black brother in uniform whose entire reason for breathing seemed to be his hope to offer proof that, though he was Black, he was not Black like you.”
― James Baldwin, Evidence of Things Not Seen

“History, I contend, is the present—we, with every breath we take, every move we make, are History—and what goes around, comes around.”
― James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reissued Edition