Quotes from Ralph Ellison

It's "winner take nothing" that is the great truth of our country or of any country. Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.

In this country men can be born and live well and die without ever having to feel much of what makes their ease possible, just because so much is buried

Time was as I was, but neither that time nor that I are any more.)

under all of this black and white mess that in their ignorance some folks accept it as a natural condition. But then again, maybe they just feel that the whole earth would blow up if even a handful of folks got to digging into it. It would even seem a shame to expose it, to have it known that so much has been built on top of such a shaky foundation.

And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and he sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the scorecard of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less—a black amorphous thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force—

people face Death and even go a piece with him and then wrestle with him and get away, thank the Lord, and return. Yes, but how many have I seen pass on and

if you don't, you're already dead anyway. Now hush, because you're simply thinking words, old saws. So hush…all is noise.

Perhaps the truth was always a lie.

What is commonly assumed to be past history is actually as much a part of the living present as William Faulkner insisted. Furtive, implacable and tricky, it inspirits both the observer and the scene observed, artifacts, manners and atmosphere and it speaks even when no one wills to listen.

I've illuminated the blackness of my invisibility—and vice versa.

And I knew in spite of the anguish within me that the sun goeth down.

Have I become one of those bores who talk too much about their children?

a dime pierced with a nail hole so as to be worn about the ankle on a string for luck

I passed on to a window decorated with switches of wiry false hair, ointments guaranteed to produce the miracle of whitening black skin. You too can be truly beautiful, a sign proclaimed.

There's nothing like isolating a man to make him think.

Well, I was and yet I was invisible, that was the fundamental contradiction. I was and yet I was unseen. It was frightening and as I sat there I sensed another frightening world of possibilities.

What a group of people we were, I thought. Why, you could cause us the greatest humiliation simply by confronting us with something we liked. Not all of us, but so many.

Don't laugh at fools. Some are His.

Toata viata am cautat ceva si, oriunde m-as fi indreptat, cineva incerca sa-mi spuna ce este acel ceva. Am acceptat raspunsurile fiecaruia, desi erau deseori contradictorii unele fata de altele sau chiar fata de ele insele. Am fost naiv. Ma cautam pe mine insumi si intrebam pe oricine, mai putin pe mine, intrebari la care eu, si numai eu, puteam gasi raspunsul.

What 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? What a waste, what a senseless waste!

HARRY: I tell you, it is not me you are looking at, Not me you are grinning at, not me your confidential looks Incriminate, but that other person, if person, You thought I was: let your necrophily Feed upon that carcase.… T. S. Eliot, Family Reunion

I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied—not even I. On the other hand, I've never been more loved and appreciated than when I tried to "justify" and affirm someone's mistaken beliefs; or when I've tried to give my friends the incorrect, absurd answers they wished to hear.

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed.

I don't know if you have a soul. I only know that you are men of flesh and blood; and that blood will spill and flesh grow cold. I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers. and I know too how we are labeled.