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Ralph Waldo Ellison Quotes
Brief author info: Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994) American writer. One of most influential African American writers, critics, and essayists; most famous for his single novel, Invisible Man, which won National Book Award (1953). Initially intended to be musician; majored in music at Tuskegee Institute; was jazz trumpeter before established as writer. Was encouraged to write by author Richard Wright. Held numerous academic positions, including Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at New York University (1970-1979); also wrote two books of essays, Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory.
Showing: 1 - 9 Ralph Waldo Ellison Quotes of 9
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.
Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life's crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart.
Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.
I suddenly recall the arpeggios of laughter lilting across the tender, springtime grass-gay-welling, far-floating, fluent, spontaneous, a bell-like feminine fluting, then suppressed; as though snuffed swiftly and irrevocably beneath the quiet solemnity of the vespered air now vibrant with somber chapel bells.
Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.
Having tried to give pattern to the chaos which lives within the pattern of your certainties, I must come out, I must emerge.
It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.
When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.
That ... is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.
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Love Quote
Few people know what they mean when they say, "I love you." ... Well, what does the word love mean? It means total interest. I think the reason very few people really fall in love with anyone is they're not willing to pay the price. The price is you have to adjust yourself to them.
Age Quote
Do not grow old, no matter how long you live. Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we are born.
Love Quote
I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.
Happiness Quote
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
Wise Quote
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
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