A Quote by Ralph Ellison

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.
There are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.
Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake?
I felt as if I was the only person awake in a city of sleepwalkers. That's an illusion, of course. When you walk through a crowd of strangers it's next door to impossible not to imagine that they're all waxworks, but probably they're thinking just the same about you.
You’re lost in your own world, in the things that happen there, and you’ve locked all the doors. Sometimes I look at you sleeping. I wake up and look at you and I feel closer to you when you’re like that, unguarded, than when you’re awake. When you’re awake you’re like someone with her eyes closed, watching a movie on the inside of your eyelids. I can’t reach you anymore. Once upon a time I could, but not now, and not for a long time.
We're either awake or we're sleeping. During the time that we're awake, we work very hard at denying things, mainly because we have to function as people. We have to control and repress everything that we're fearful of, because it doesn't make sense to go crazy on the streets, but in reality we hide and we hide, repress and repress, our fears of the world of violence, of separation, of death, and sometimes hopes, and some things that are very joyful, reunions or all of those good things. It's only in dreams that we're really truthful with whatever hurts most; they're really very real.
She lost much of her appetite. At night, an invisible hand kept shaking her awake every few hours. Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in nameless dread - the bedside clock ticking, the blue moonlight coating the window like glue - before she`d remember the brutal fact that had caused it.
People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.
I may be a sleeping politician. But one should know that a sleeping politician is always awake about national politics. I am not like politicians who sleep on national issues though they may be awake physically.
Great civilizations have annihilated themselveswhen the development of their spiritual wisdom lagged far behind their scientific technology. We need to walk softly, for though we have tread upon the surface of the moon, we have remained bigots and arrogant egotists. Walk softly, for history repeats its self with little provacation.
She was fragile, gentle, wide awake in a sleeping world.
After departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love. So many things, so many people, depart! And we can only repossess them in our minds.
The ability to walk in someone else's shoes, or in my case, play down in someone else's cleats is one of the very best things you can do. There's nobody in this world who doesn't have that voice in their head. Sometimes it's the best voice in the world, and it pumps you up, but sometimes the voice is down. I wanted my players to be able to hear my voice in their head instead of someone else's because I knew that was a narrative I could control.
Softly and kindly remind yourself, ''I cannot own anything.'' It is a valuable thought to keep in mind as you struggle to improve your financial picture, worry about investments, and plan how to acquire more and more. It is a universal principle which you are part of. You must release everything when you truly awaken. Are you letting your life go by in frustration and worry over not having enough? If so, relax and remember that you only get what you have for a short period of time. When you awaken you will see the folly of being attached to anything.
We are in the dark places of the earth," said Madman. "Where all the ancient and most dangerous secrets are kept. There are Old Things down here, sleeping all around us, in the earth and in the living rock, and in the spaces between spaces. Keep your voices down. Some of these old creatures sleep but lightly, and even their dreams can have force and substance in our limited world. We have come among forgotten gods and sleeping devils, from the days before the world settled down and declared itself sane.
I've developed a fun text when a friend has just had a baby. I ask a classic question: 'Are you sleeping?' The reply is inevitably that they aren't, they're getting a few hours here and there, they're exhausted. It's then when I swoop in: 'It'll all be worth it when they're softly stroking your hair as you slip into oblivion.'
Many, many things are dangerous in our world, commercials and TV are dangerous, and so is the world of sitcoms. But nobody does anything about them because they're turning in alot of money.
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