# Quote — James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

> '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.'

- Author: [James Baldwin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin.md)
- Book: [Giovanni's Room](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room.md)
- Page: 31
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Baldwin#Giovanni's_Room_(1956)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-baldwin/giovannis-room/i-dont-believe

## More from this book

> 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)