I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms.
RALPH ELLISONWhat 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?
More Ralph Ellison Quotes
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God is love, I said, but art’s the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.
RALPH ELLISON -
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
RALPH ELLISON -
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 -
Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.
RALPH ELLISON -
Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
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America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description.
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And I knew that it was better to live out one’s absurdity than to die for that of others.
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When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
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Words are your business, boy. Not just the word. Words are everything. The key to the rock, the answer to the question.
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…and yet I am what they think I am.
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I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance-but it must be acceptance on his own terms.
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The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.
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I am nobody but myself.
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Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?
RALPH ELLISON -
We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.
RALPH ELLISON