I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
RALPH ELLISONThe world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.
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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.
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The antidote to hubris, to overweening pride, is irony, that capacity to discover and systematize ideas.
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I am nobody but myself.
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You start Saul, and end up Paul,’ my grandfather had often said. ‘When you’re a youngun, you Saul, but let life whup your head a bit and you starts to trying to be Paul – though you still Sauls around on the side.
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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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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.
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To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.
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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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It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
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Power, for the writer….lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.
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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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America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
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…and yet I am what they think I am.
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The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.
RALPH ELLISON