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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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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
Library
Debt
Tribal
Ground
Rightly
Poet
Burned
Dies
Immense
Today
Poets
Africa
Acknowledge

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There was a great deal of inbreeding between the Indians and the slaves. Genetically speaking, black people are some part black, some part European.
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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.
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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 came from.
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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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If you need to know history, the real story of those before you, then you should go to the library and read newspaper clippings of someone like Muhammad Ali every day, then it might giver you some understanding of the man.
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We all suffer. If a man's wise, he learns from it.
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In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.
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That's what happens with writing. Ingredients bubble and cook. Material becomes substance.
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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.
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The anti-blackness has generated new forms of youth involvement in anti-whiteness, which in some cases is appalling.
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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.
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The way to succeed is never quit. Thats it. But really be humble about it.
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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.
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Racism and hatred are synonymous.
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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.
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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.
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In the bush, trust no one you don't know.
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Every death is like the burning of a library.
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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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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.
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