
9 Outtakes from James Baldwin's Paris Review interview - Rolf Potts

Writer and activist James Baldwin on the power of reading:
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.... See more
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.... See more
James Clear • 3-2-1: How to time travel, the power of reading, and being grateful when you don't have what you want
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books (Dostoevsky and Dickens) that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves... See more
James Baldwin had more basic counsel. He told The Paris Review: “Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say. If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you. If you’re not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you.” There follows Baldwin’s recipe for a career: “Discipline, love, luck,
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