James Baldwin quotes about love

Beneath the joy, of course, was anguish and beneath the amazement was fear; but they did not work themselves to the beginning until our high beginning was aloes on our tongues.

I was to destroy this room and give to Giovanni a new and better life.

Love is as strong as death, as deep as the grave.

I wish to God I may die if I don’t love you. There ain’t no sky above us if I don’t love you.

Perhaps she had lost her love because she had not, in the end, believed in it enough.

She knew that the kind of imprisonment that love might impose was also, mysteriously, a freedom for the soul and spirit, was water in the dry place, and had nothing to do with the prisons, churches, laws, rewards, and punishments, that so positively cluttered the landscape of her aunt’s mind.

For his drifting soul was anchored in the love of God; in the rock that endured for ever. The light and the darkness had kissed each other, and were married now, for ever, in the life and the vision of John’s soul.

Ain’t nothing but the love of God can make the darkness light.

She was descending with Richard to the sea. She would have to climb back up alone, but she did not know this then.

Your Daddy beats you, she said, because he loves you.

Ten years. Their battle never ended; they never bought a home. He died in France.

I don’t want to sound foolish. But, just remember, love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don’t panic now.

It’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.

Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.

I hope that nobody has ever had to look at anybody they love through glass.

I guess it can’t be too often that two people can laugh and make love, too, make love because they are laughing, laugh because they’re making love. The love and the laughter come from the same place: but not many people go there.

When two people love each other, when they really love each other, everything that happens between them has something of a sacramental air.

And Fonny’s body was a total mystery to me – the body of one’s lover always is, no matter how well one gets to know it: it is the changing envelope which contains the gravest mystery of one’s life.

Baby. Baby. Baby. I love you. And I’m going to build us a table and a whole lot of folks going to be eating off it for a long, long time to come.

He was the most beautiful person I had seen in all my life.

I don’t know, sir. But it’s old enough to know who you love.

I got two things in my life, man – I got my wood and stone and I got Tish. If I lose them, I’m lost. I know that.

He stands, and raises his fist. He smiles, and stands there for a moment, looking me dead in the eye. Something travels from him to me, it is love and courage.

We were to spend a long time in this room: our lives.

Now, we knew that nobody loved us: or, now, we knew who did. Whoever loved us was not here.