I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
RALPH ELLISONI am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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And while the ice was melting to form a flood in which I threatened to drown I awoke one afternoon to find that my first northern winter had set.
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In order to travel far you have to be detached.
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Perhaps everyone loved someone; I didn’t now, I couldn’t give much thought to love; in order to travel far you had to be detached, and I had the long road back to the campus before me.
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That … is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.
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To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.
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Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget.’
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The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.
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When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.
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Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.
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Everywhere I’ve turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my own good—only /they/ were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?
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Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.
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It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.
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America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
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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.
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I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.
RALPH ELLISON






