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Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

Alex Haley

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Alex Haley
Age: 70 †
Born: 1921
Born: August 11
Died: 1992
Died: February 10
Biographer
Genealogist
Historian
Journalist
Military Personnel
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Ithica
New York
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley
Alexander M. P. Haley
Saga
Symbolic
Roots
Family
People

More quotes by Alex Haley

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You're always being judged. No matter what you do, it's not the right thing. If you didn't become successful, then you'd be pointed at as one of those creatures down their who didn't take advantage of this or that, who didn't climb and rise and so forth.
Alex Haley
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The way to succeed is never quit. Thats it. But really be humble about it.
Alex Haley
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In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.
Alex Haley
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Racism and hatred are synonymous.
Alex Haley
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My fondest hope is that 'Roots' may start black, white, brown, red, yellow people digging back for their own roots. Man, that would make me feel 90 feet tall.
Alex Haley
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Indeed optimists rather than defeatists have produced the results for which serious genealogical research is best known.
Alex Haley
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Every time an old person dies, it's like a library burning down.
Alex Haley
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Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.
Alex Haley
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Most of us prefer to be as quiet as possible about giving, because every time it's publicized that we do something, if it's something of the nature of giving, we'll be doubly besieged, and you really get sick of being always criticized no matter what you do.
Alex Haley
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Raw, naked truth exchanged between the black man and the white man is what a whole lot more of is needed in this country - to clear the air of the racial mirages, cliches, and lies that this country's very atmosphere has been filled with for four hundred years.
Alex Haley
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Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a manchild was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte.
Alex Haley
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I acknowledge immense debt to the griots [tribal poets] of Africa - where today it is rightly said that when a griot dies, it is as if a library has burned to the ground.
Alex Haley
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Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.
Alex Haley
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Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.
Alex Haley
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Tying the little folks with the older folks is a great and powerful tool to preserve and to protect the family and the individual.
Alex Haley
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I look at my books the way parents look at their children. The fact that one becomes more successful than the others doesn't make me love the less successful one any less.
Alex Haley
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When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.
Alex Haley
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The anti-blackness has generated new forms of youth involvement in anti-whiteness, which in some cases is appalling.
Alex Haley
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When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand.
Alex Haley
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The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it. ... You start out lowly and humble and you carefully try to learn an accretion of little things that help you get there.
Alex Haley