I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance-but it must be acceptance on his own terms.
RALPH ELLISONThat 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.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.
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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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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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Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.
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I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
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Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
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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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My hole is warm and full of light.
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The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.
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In order to travel far you have to be detached.
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I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I’ve tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied
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Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
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The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.
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America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
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Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.
RALPH ELLISON