# Giovanni's Room - Author: [James Baldwin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin.md) - Quotes: 15 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room ## Quotes > I shall never be able to have any more of these boyish, zestful affairs — which are, really, when one thinks about it, a kind of higher, or, anyway, more pretentious masturbation. People are too various to be treated so lightly. p. 5 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/i-shall-never.md) > She is smiling and her eyes are kind but now the smile is purely social p. 62 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/she-is-smiling.md) > Nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom. p. 5 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/nothing-is-more.md) > 'Love him,' said Jacques, with vehemence, 'love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty — they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better — forever — if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe. He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. 'You play it safe long enough,' he said, in a different tone, 'and you'll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever — like me.' p. 50 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/love-him-said.md) > 'You think,' he persisted, 'that my life is shameful because my encounters are. And they are. But you should ask yourself why they are.' > > 'Why are they — shameful?' I asked him. > > 'Because there is no affection in them, and no joy. It's like putting an electric plug in a dead socket. Touch, but no contact. All touch, but no contact and no light.' p. 49 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/you-think-he-persisted.md) > But people can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life. p. 4 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/but-people-cant.md) > Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love. It is a remarkable process. It is far more terrible than anything I have ever read about it, more terrible than anything I will ever be able to say. p. 139 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/much-has-been.md) > 'Somebody,' said Jacques, 'your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour — and in the oddest places! — for the lack of it.' p. 51 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/somebody-said-jacques.md) > 'I don't believe in this nonsense about time. Time is just common, it's like water for a fish. Everybody's in this water, nobody gets out of it, or if he does the same thing happens to him that happens to the fish, he dies. And you know what happens in this water, time? The big fish eat the little fish. That's all. The big fish eat the little fish and the ocean doesn't care.' p. 31 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/i-dont-believe.md) > I am beginning to feel like part of a travelling circus. p. 45 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/i-am-beginning.md) > He was silent for a long while. Then: 'You do, sometimes, remind me of the kind of man who is tempted to put himself in prison in order to avoid being hit by a car.' p. 104 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/he-was-silent.md) > 'And, at the risk of losing forever your so remarkably candid friendship, let me tell you something. Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford, and you are not that young any more.' p. 36 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/and-at-the.md) > 'Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden,' Jacques said. And then: 'I wonder why.' > > I have thought about Jacques' question since. Everyone, after all, goes the same dark road — and the road has a trick of being most dark, most treacherous, when it seems most bright — and it's true that nobody stays in the garden of Eden. Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or. p. 22 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/nobody-can-stay.md) > 'I felt so aimless — like a tennis ball, bouncing, bouncing — I began to wonder where I'd land.' p. 108 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/i-felt-so-aimless.md) > 'Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you weaker, and so you can stand less and less.' p. 97 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/maybe-everything-bad.md)