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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

When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
RALPH ELLISON

Available Discover Inspirational Inspiring Life One Liner
Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.
RALPH ELLISON

Affair Beauty Dream Feel Love Price Relation Task
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
The truth is the light and the light is the truth.
RALPH ELLISON

Belief Light Loyal One Liner Passion Revel 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
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
I’m not a separatist. The imagination is integrative. That’s how you make the new — by putting something else with what you’ve got. And I’m unashamedly an American integrationist.
RALPH ELLISON

Imagination Implement Innovation Integrative Judge Plan Solution Task
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
In order to travel far you have to be detached.
RALPH ELLISON

Detached Explore Journey Memories Order Travel
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
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
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 feel the need to reaffirm all of it, the whole unhappy territory and all the things loved and unloveable in it, for it is all part of me.
RALPH ELLISON

Feeling Bad Loose Low Needs Sad Territory Unhappy Worst
If only all the contradictory voices shouting in my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn’t care as long as they sang without dissonance.
RALPH ELLISON

Contradictory Freedom Long Shout Sing Song Unison Voice
Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.
RALPH ELLISON

Danger Feel Inspire Motivation Losing Sense Where

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?

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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?

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