Art has to be a kind of confession. I don’t mean a true confession in the sense of that dreary magazine. The effort it seems to me, is: if you can examine and face your life, you can discover the terms with which you are connected to other lives, and they can discover them, too — the terms with which they are connected to other people.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist

In Studs Terkel, “An interview with James Baldwin” (1961)

Published in Conversations with James Baldwin (1989)