And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.
Ralph EllisonPerhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.
Ralph EllisonMany of the rites of passage, those rituals of growing up found in our society, are in the form of such comic, practical joking affairs--which we ignore in the belief that they possess no deeper significance. Yet it is precisely in their being regarded as unimportant that they take on importance. For in them we ritualize and dramatize attitudes which contradict and often embarrass the sacred values which we proclaim through our solemn ceremonies and rituals of nationhood.
Ralph Ellison