Quote

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

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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
Littles
Quit
Little
Quitting
Trying
Humble
Really
Succeed
Way
Start
Things
Help
Accretion
Never
Learn
Lowly
Time
Helping
Carefully

More quotes by Alex Haley

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I get interviewed a lot, and I found myself listening to what the interviewer is asking me, I'm analyzing what I'm being asked more than my response.
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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In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.
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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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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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History is written by winners.
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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I wasn't going to be one of those people who died wondering what if? I would keep putting my dreams to the test - even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure. This is the shadowland of hope, and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.
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Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.
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My parents were teachers and they went out of their way to see to it that I had books. We grew up in a home that was full of books. And so I learned to read. I loved to read.
Alex Haley
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Your attitude is everything. Believe in yourself and trust your material. To be a successful writer, write every single day where you feel like it or not. Never, never give up, and the world will reward you beyond your wildest dreams.
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Unless we learn from history, we are destined to repeat it. This is no longer merely an academic exercise, but may contain our worlds fate and our destiny.
Alex Haley
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I know that statistically, it has been proven that there is a tremendous amount of black on black crime within the inner cities.
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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You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in you. It's a small service, and there's a lot of esprit de corps.
Alex Haley
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But then, as far as I know, as far as I've studied or heard or picked up, it seems that this type of thing is a curse against mankind.
Alex Haley
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Never completely encircle your enemy. Leave him some escape, for he will fight even more desperately if trapped.
Alex Haley
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In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.
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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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