When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
RALPH ELLISONThat … is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget.’
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I blundered into writing.
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It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
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In order to travel far you have to be detached.
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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.
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I remember that I’m invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.
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I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?
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the world is just as concrete, ornery, vile, and sublimely wonderful as before, only now I better understand my relation to it and it to me.
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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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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.
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The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.
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Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?
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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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…and yet I am what they think I am.
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Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
RALPH ELLISON