As quoted by Lewis Nichols http://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/30/obituaries/lewis-nichols-times-drama-critic-during-world-war-ii-dead-at-78.html in "Talk With Jim Bishop" http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F03EEDE133AE53BBC4E53DFB466838E649EDE, The New York Times (6 February 1955).
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James Baldwin 163
(1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924–1987Related quotes

“An honest man's word is as good as his bond.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book IV, Ch. 34.

49 Themistocles
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.”
Two Sisters: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel http://books.google.com/books?id=xnJbAAAAMAAJ&q="American+writers+want+to+be+not+good+but+great+and+so+are+neither" (1970)
1970s

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXII : Grand Master Architect, p. 194
Context: To the gentle, many will be gentle; to the kind, many will be kind. A good man will find that there is goodness in the world; an honest man will find that there is honesty in the world; and a man of principle will find principle and integrity in the hearts of others.
There are no blessings which the mind may not convert into the bitterest of evils; and no trials which it may not transform into the noblest and divinest blessings. There are no temptations from which assailed virtue may not gain strength, instead of falling before them, vanquished and subdued.

“Being photographed does not make a man a good writer. It doesn't make a man anything.”

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma.
I (Yo soy un hombre sincero) as translated by Esther Allen in José Martí : Selected Writings (2002), p. 273, ISBN 0142437042
Variant translations:
A sincere man am I
From the land where palm trees grow,
And I want before I die
My soul's verses to bestow.
"A Sincere Man Am I" http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/46409-Jose-Marti-A-Sincere-Man-Am-I---Verse-I-, as translated by Manuel A. Tellechea, in Versos Sencillos: Simple Verses (1997) ISBN 1558852042
I am a sincere man
from where the palm tree grows,
and before I die I wish
to pour forth the verses from my soul.
Simple Verses (1891)