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Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

Ralph Ellison

America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
RALPH ELLISON

Copy Exact Recognize Same Strand Unchanged Woven
If only all the contradictory voices shouting in my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn’t care as long as they sang without dissonance.
RALPH ELLISON

Contradictory Freedom Long Shout Sing Song Unison Voice
I 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.
RALPH ELLISON

Feeling Bad Loose Low Needs Sad Territory Unhappy Worst
God is love, I said, but art’s the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.
RALPH ELLISON

Art Bless God Identity Moksha Pray Shadow Truth
That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been; or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tale told by inattentive idealists.
RALPH ELLISON

Good Time Identity Memories Memory Odds Punctual Remember
The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.
RALPH ELLISON

Hobby Myself Past Require Shadow Skill Value Writing
Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form…without light I am not only invisible but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s form is to live a death…the truth is the light and light is the truth.
RALPH ELLISON

Confirm Death Giving Life Light Reality Truth
We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.
RALPH ELLISON

Enough Morning Museum Sun
Injustice wears ever the same harsh face wherever it shows itself.
RALPH ELLISON

Faces Harsh Injustice Reveal Seen Show Visible
And I knew that it was better to live out one’s absurdity than to die for that of others.
RALPH ELLISON

Absurdity Awesome Better Die Life Live Share
To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.
RALPH ELLISON

Ashamed Fear Guilt Hell Like Scary Showcase
And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals.
RALPH ELLISON

Coveive Live Lose Mind Pattern Plan Sight
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.
RALPH ELLISON

Art Depend Humanity Understanding Will
Man’s hope can paint a purple picture, can transform a soaring vulture into a noble eagle or moaning dove.
RALPH ELLISON

Hope Man Picture Soaring Vulture
Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it.” Stephen Covey “It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
RALPH ELLISON

Act Circle Commitment Involvement Study Work
Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.
RALPH ELLISON

Conflict Crafts Discuss Immediate Novel Occupation Serious

Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

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Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

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