A Quote by James Baldwin
I want to be an honest man and a good writer.
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What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.
Johnny Miller is a very honest guy. That may have been to his detriment sometimes. On television, he's too honest. We talk about it a lot. Do you really need to be that honest? You know what I mean? But he's a good man. He's a good family man. He's got good values, and we're delighted to have him as our honoree.
What makes a good writer of history is a guy who is suspicious. Suspicion marks the real difference between the man who wants to write honest history and the one who'd rather write a good story.
Make this decision today. Will you be a good and honest writer, or would you rather be famous, loved, noticed? Tell me, because there are different paths for these two divergent goals. The decision to be a true artist is lonelier and slower, but it will lead to better work and, I think, a better life. Very rarely you will be a good and honest writer and also know a little comfort and some attention and the well wishes of a crowd. This is very rare.
If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all
And let me tell you, you boys of America, that there is no higher inspiration to any man to be a good man, a good citizen, and a good son, brother, or father, than the knowledge that you come from honest blood.
The writer is a spiritual anarchist, as in the depth of his soul every man is. He is discontented with everything and everybody. The writer is everybody's best friend and only true enemy-the good and great enemy. He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a writer is a rebel who never stops
The writer's ultimate purpose is to use his gifts to develop man's awareness of himself so that he, man, can become a better instrument for living together with other men. This sense of identity is the root by which all honest creative effort is fed.
If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That's what I've done.
The book that first made me want to be a writer is Flannery O'Connor's short story collection 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find.'
That's one thing I like about Hollywood. The writer is there revealed in his ultimate corruption. He asks no praise, because his praise comes to him in the form of a salary check. In Hollywood the average writer is not young, not honest, not brave, and a bit overdressed. But he is darn good company, which book writers as a rule are not. He is better than what he writes. Most book writers are not as good.
The most despised sector of Hollywood are the writers. A good writer is quickly promoted to a 'concept man' - and then a producer - because he's too valuable to simply be a writer.
If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.
Men must be honest with themselves before they can be honest with others. A man who is not honest with himself presents a hopeless case.
Every honest man will suppose honest acts to flow from honest principles, and the rogues may rail without intermission.
Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, 'Oh well, I'm going to put the writing away until my children are grown,' then you don't really want to be a writer. If you want to be a writer, you do your writing... If you don't do it, you probably don't want to be a writer, you just want to have written and be famous—which is very different.
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