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That … is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.

Ralph Ellison

The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one’s own human failing.
RALPH ELLISON

Art Blue Circumstance Failing Human Irrepressible Music
I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.
RALPH ELLISON

Affection Afraid Family Grandmother Grandparent Love Slave
And the mind that has conceived a plan of living must never lose sight of the chaos against which that pattern was conceived. That goes for societies as well as for individuals.
RALPH ELLISON

Coveive Live Lose Mind Pattern Plan Sight
Commercial rock ‘n’ roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression.
RALPH ELLISON

Church Comercial Culture Expression Music Rocks Stream Trend
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?
RALPH ELLISON

Desire Expected Happiness Lost Satisfy Trying Wish
Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled ‘file and forget.’
RALPH ELLISON

Action Brain Forget Knowledge Possibility Power
We don’t all dig Shakespeare uniformly, or even ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ The understanding of art depends finally upon one’s willingness to extend one’s humanity and one’s knowledge of human life.
RALPH ELLISON

Art Depend Humanity Understanding Will
It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.
RALPH ELLISON

Being Yourself Ego Expectation Life Love Respect Self Self Esteem
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.
RALPH ELLISON

Ancestor Emotion Family People Relationship
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 ELLISON

Black History Fame Fiber Invisible Life Luck Men People Substance
Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
RALPH ELLISON

Control Enjoy Failure Happy Humanity Inspiring Life
All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.
RALPH ELLISON

Adult Certain Illegal Individual Minorities Permission Prohibited
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.
RALPH ELLISON

Awake Dream Invisible Remember Sleep Walk World
I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?
RALPH ELLISON

Attempt Denial Excuse Invisibility Invisible Irresponsible Lazy Way
The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.
RALPH ELLISON

Hobby Myself Past Require Shadow Skill Value Writing
And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own.
RALPH ELLISON

Fail Fear Issue Loose My Own Problem Try Way

That … is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.

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That … is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.

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