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To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

Ralph Ellison

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
America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
RALPH ELLISON

Copy Exact Recognize Same Strand Unchanged Woven
I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.
RALPH ELLISON

Asking Being Yourself Individuality Myself Query Question
the world is just as concrete, ornery, vile, and sublimely wonderful as before, only now I better understand my relation to it and it to me.
RALPH ELLISON

Aim Concentrate Focus Ornery Plan Task Wonderful World
Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?
RALPH ELLISON

Act Frequency Knowledge Knows Lower Motivation Speak
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
RALPH ELLISON

Black History People Refuse Understand Visible
If social protest is antithetical to art, what then shall we make of Goya, Dickens, and Twain?
RALPH ELLISON

Art Justice Love Miracle Protest Social
In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.
RALPH ELLISON

Choice Day Desperate Live Music
Words are your business, boy. Not just the word. Words are everything. The key to the rock, the answer to the question.
RALPH ELLISON

Answer Boys Business Keys Question Rock Word
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?
RALPH ELLISON

Almighty Good Merry Go Round Sacrifice Wanted
Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it.” Stephen Covey “It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
RALPH ELLISON

Act Circle Commitment Involvement Study Work
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 ELLISON

Activity Attention God Hollywood Hunt Invisible Men Risk Spook
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
You start Saul, and end up Paul,’ my grandfather had often said. ‘When you’re a youngun, you Saul, but let life whup your head a bit and you starts to trying to be Paul – though you still Sauls around on the side.
RALPH ELLISON

Experience Grandfather Mind Side Start Trying Young
It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
RALPH ELLISON

Change Commitment Committed Deep Grow Grows
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

To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

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To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

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