Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback Quotes

“This power had struck John, in the head or in the heart; and, in a moment, wholly, filling him with an anguish that he could never in his life have imagined, that he surely could not endure, that even now he could not believe, had opened him up; had cracked him open, as wood beneath the axe cracks down the middle, as rocks break up; had ripped him and felled him in a moment, so that John had not felt the wound, but only the agony, had not felt the fall, but only the fear; and lay here, now, helpless, screaming, at the very bottom of darkness.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“Only the soul, obsessed with the journey it had made, and had still to make, pursued its mysterious and dreadful end; and carried, heavy with weeping and bitterness, the heart along.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“Men spoke of how the heart broke up, but never spoke of how the soul hung speechless in the pause, the void, the terror between the living and the dead; how, all garments rent and cast aside, the naked soul passed over the very mouth of Hell. Once there, there was no turning back; once there, the soul remembered, though the heart sometimes forgot.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“She was not, however, fooled; she remembered the instant at which her heart had stopped, and she knew that it beat now with a difference.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“...in the silence something waited, ready to spring.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“He would be lead into darkness, and in darkness would remain...”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“It had always been there, at his back perhaps, all these years, but he had never turned to face it. Now it stood before him, staring, nevermore to be escaped, and its mouth was enlarged without any limit. It was ready to swallow him up.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“Behind them was the darkness, nothing but the darkness, and all around them destruction, and before them nothing but the fire - a bastard people, far from God, singing and crying in the wilderness!”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“But I reckon,' she said slowly, 'that I don't want to be with you no more'n you want to be with me. I don't want no man what's ashamed and scared. Can't do me no good, that kind of man.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“Her eyes told him that she thought he was a fool; but that, even had she loved him ever so desperately, it would have been beneath her to argue about his decision - a large part of her simplicity consisted in determining not to want what she could not have with ease.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“It was he who, unforgivably, taught her that there are people in the world for whom 'coming along' is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“...you was born wild, and you's going to die wild. But ain't no use to try to take the whole world with you.”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback

“You don't know what to do with this boy, and that's why you all the time trying to fix the blame on somebody. Ain't nobody to blame...”
― James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain (Penguin Modern Classics) by James Baldwin (4-Oct-2001) Paperback