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 ELLISONInjustice wears ever the same harsh face wherever it shows itself.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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I blundered into writing.
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The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the street a siren howled.
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I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.
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The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.
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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.
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It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.
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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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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 look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.
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Meaning grows in the mind, but the shape and form of the act remains.
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Commercial rock ‘n’ roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression.
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Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.
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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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I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
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There are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.
RALPH ELLISON