black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.

Ralph Ellison

Power, for the writer….lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.
RALPH ELLISON

Ability Humanity Little Lying Power Reveal Writer
It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
RALPH ELLISON

Change Commitment Committed Deep Grow Grows
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

Conflict Crafts Discuss Immediate Novel Occupation Serious
All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority. The universal in the novel-and isn’t that what we’re all clamoring for these days?-is reached only through the depiction of the specific man in a specific circumstance.
RALPH ELLISON

Act Individual Life Men Minor Minority Novel Universal
Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life’s crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart.
RALPH ELLISON

Art Chart Current Life Man Philosophy Reduce Sea
God is love, I said, but art’s the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.
RALPH ELLISON

Art Bless God Identity Moksha Pray Shadow Truth
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
Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.
RALPH ELLISON

Action Definition Hibernation Implement Preparation
If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison and destroy.
RALPH ELLISON

Bind Imprison Political Politics Potency Power Revive
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
The antidote to hubris, to overweening pride, is irony, that capacity to discover and systematize ideas.
RALPH ELLISON

Antidote Discover Fact Hubris Ideas Irony Pride System
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
When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.
RALPH ELLISON

Act American Life Life Positive Rules Theatrical
Man’s hope can paint a purple picture, can transform a soaring vulture into a noble eagle or moaning dove.
RALPH ELLISON

Hope Man Picture Soaring Vulture
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.
RALPH ELLISON

Butterfly Friend Happy Journey Long Love Order Plan Travel
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

The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The world is a possibility if only you’ll discover it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ralph Ellison Quotes