America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
RALPH ELLISONWithout the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget.’
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.
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The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.
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The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.
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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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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 an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms.
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I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
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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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Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget.’
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When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
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What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?
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In order to travel far you have to be detached.
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If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison and destroy.
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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.
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Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
RALPH ELLISON






