top of page
"By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Communication quotes

"What's the meaning of ignore? You hear somebody, but you never asnwer to him!"

"Why certainly, words possess power. They do! But releasing their magic requires combining and arranging those words in the right order."

"Three carefully stringed words are worth more than a book of gibberish. It's not the word count but the impact of those words that counts."

"There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing."

"The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion."

"Listen should be on 60-70% and talking or speaking on from 40 up to 30%."

"When you open your mouth, listeners are offended. When you close your mouth, the expectant are offended. If a person seeks misdoing from you they will find it regardless of whether or not you deliver."

"If one is talking about a vile thing it is better to talk of it in coarse language, one is less likely to be seduced into excusing it."

"You can save hundred words with just one look!"

"If you speak, that is rain; if you speak too much, that is flood!"
Explore more quotes by Ralph Ellison

"I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed."

"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."

"If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy."

"Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear."

"There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale."

"Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."
bottom of page