“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.”
Other Ralph Ellison Quotes
The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life.
Ralph Ellison 
62% of people like this quote
There are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.
Ralph Ellison
55% of people like this quote
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.
Ralph Ellison
54% of people like this quote
Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
Ralph Ellison
54% of people like this quote
If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy.
Ralph Ellison
53% of people like this quote