black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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 do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.
RALPH ELLISON

Caring Cop Gun Poet Thought Trigger Word
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 invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
RALPH ELLISON

Black History People Refuse Understand Visible
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
Meaning grows in the mind, but the shape and form of the act remains.
RALPH ELLISON

Action Activity Energy Form Mind Power Shapes
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
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
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
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
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
The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.
RALPH ELLISON

Beautiful Exploit Explore Life Meaning Things To Do
Injustice wears ever the same harsh face wherever it shows itself.
RALPH ELLISON

Faces Harsh Injustice Reveal Seen Show Visible
My hole is warm and full of light.
RALPH ELLISON

Holes Life Light One Liner Positive Warm Women
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ralph Ellison Quotes