Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Quotation of the Week: James Baldwin

"You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world....The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way...people look at reality, then you can change it.

--James Baldwin
Source: Epigraph (quoted at the opening) to Mary Pipher's excellent 2006 book, Writing to Change the World.

4 comments:

Mridu Khullar said...

Love, love, love this quote. Thanks for sharing it.

Theresa Milstein said...

I love this quote too. That's what I try to do with writing and teaching, but (potentially) writers have a bigger audience.

John Vanderslice said...

As usual, Baldwin gets it exactly right. Thanks for the quote, Erika.

Erika D. said...

So glad that it resonates!