"One tries to treat [people] as the miracles they are..."

James Baldwin on social media:

"One tries to treat [people] as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become."

Incontestably, alas, most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they’ve become. — James Baldwin

Sunbeams, January 2019

Quote discovered in Sunbeams (The Sun Magazine)