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In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.

Ralph Ellison

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Ralph Ellison
Age: 80 †
Born: 1914
Born: March 1
Died: 1994
Died: April 16
Autobiographer
Critic
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Music Critic
Novelist
Prosaist
Writer
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma
Ralph Waldo Ellison
Chose
Noise
Either
Days
Dies
Rather
Music
Live
Desperately

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Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. Stephen Covey It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
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I remember that I'm invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.
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I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
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Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled 'file and forget.'
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Injustice wears ever the same harsh face wherever it shows itself.
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Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.
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That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds our history ever a tale told by inattentive idealists.
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I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of it all, I find that I love.
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It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.
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Man's hope can paint a purple picture, can transform a soaring vulture into a noble eagle or moaning dove.
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Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.
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