The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one’s own human failing.
RALPH ELLISONI feel the need to reaffirm all of it, the whole unhappy territory and all the things loved and unloveable in it, for it is all part of me.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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And while the ice was melting to form a flood in which I threatened to drown I awoke one afternoon to find that my first northern winter had set.
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In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.
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It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
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America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
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I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.
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To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.
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It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.
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Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
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Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life’s crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart.
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We don’t all dig Shakespeare uniformly, or even ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ The understanding of art depends finally upon one’s willingness to extend one’s humanity and one’s knowledge of human life.
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And I knew that it was better to live out one’s absurdity than to die for that of others.
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I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of it all, I find that I love.
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…and yet I am what they think I am.
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The truth is the light and the light is the truth.
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The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.
RALPH ELLISON