"The blues is an impulse to keep the……" — Ralph Ellison
"The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically."
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Ralph Ellison
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83 Quotes by Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison has 83 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Our task, then always, is to challenge the apparent forms of reality-that is, the fixed manner and values of the…
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It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
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Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it." Stephen Covey "It takes a…
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Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of…
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The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstance whether created by others…
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I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance-but it…
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If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison…
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America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain. It's 'winner take nothing' that…
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And while the ice was melting to form a flood in which I threatened to drown I awoke one afternoon…
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I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to…
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We don't all dig Shakespeare uniformly, or even 'Little Red Riding Hood.' The understanding of art depends finally upon one's…
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I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you…
See all 83 quotes by Ralph Ellison »
More Aching Quotes
This quote is filed under Aching Quotes,
one of 160 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden, You will find yourself a partner in the…
— Rudyard Kipling
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An aching head and trembling limbs, which are the inevitable effects of drinking, disincline the hands from work.
— George Washington
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Smile, though your heart is aching. Smile, even though it's breaking. When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get…
— Charlie Chaplin
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You must squeeze out of yourself every sensation, every thought, every image, - mercilessly, without reserve and without remorse: you…
— Joseph Conrad
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Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.
— Natalie Goldberg
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It sloweth age, it strengtheneth youth, it helpeth digestion, it abandoneth melancholie, it relisheth the heart, it lighteneth the mind,…
— Joseph Lyons
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The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can…
— John Tukey
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Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
— Thomas Gray
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We go, in winter's biting wind, On many a short-lived winter day, With aching back but willing mind To dig…
— Ruth Pitter
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What I observed in western Azerbaijan, among the small portion of the nearly one million Azerbaijanis who were displaced by…
— Ed Kashi
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While science has nothing of value to say on the great and aching questions of life, death, love and meaning,…
— David Berlinski
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The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within…
— William Hazlitt
See all 160 Aching Quotes »