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“When I discover who I am, I'll be free.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisble Man

“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.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“As Brother Jack had said, History makes harsh demands of us all. But they were demands that had to be met if men were to be the masters and not the victims of their times. Did I believe that? Perhaps I had already begun to pay.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“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!”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Here are the facts. He was standing and he fell. He fell and he kneeled. He kneeled and he bled. He bled and he died. He fell in a heap like any man and his blood spilled out like any blood; red as any blood, wet as any blood and reflecting the sky and buildings and birds and trees, or your face if you looked into its dulling mirror-and it dried in the sun as blood dries. That's all. They spilled his blood and he bled. They cut him down and he died; the blood flowed on the walk in a pool, gleamed a while, and, after a while, became dull then dusty, then dried. That's the story and that's how it ended. It's an old story and there's been too much blood to excite you. Besides, it's only important when it fills the veins of a living man. Aren't you tired of such stories? Aren't you sick of blood? Then why listen? Why don't you go? It's hot out here.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Civil wars...are the best wars for the writer...because they have a way of continuing long afterwl wars between nations are resolved; because, with the combatants being the same people, civil wars are never really won; and because their most devastating engagements are fought within the individual human heart.”
― Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act

“For man without myth is Othello with Desdemona gone: chaos descends, faith vanishes and superstitions prowl in the mind.”
― Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act

“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”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“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.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“popular, were combined with the special virtues of some local bootlegger, the eloquence of some Negro preacher, the strength and grace of some local athlete, the ruthlessness of some businessman-physician, the elegance in dress and manners of some head-waiter or hotel doorman.”
― Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act

“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.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Perhaps the truth was always a lie.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“(Time was as I was, but neither that time nor that "I" are any more.)”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Even let them eat hummingbirds�� wings and tell you it’s too good for you.—Grits and greens don’t turn to ashes in anybody’s mouth—how about it, Rev. Eatmore?”
― Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth

“My God, you don’t write out of your skin; you write out of your imagination.�� Ralph Ellison”
― Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth

“You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful.”
― Ralph Ellison

“I stopped and questioned her, asked her what was wrong. “I dearly loved my master, son,�� she said. “You should have hated him,�� I said. “He gave me several sons,�� she said, “and because I loved my sons I learned to love their father though I hated him too.�� “I too have become acquainted with ambivalence,�� I said. “That’s why I’m here.�� “What’s that?�� “Nothing, a word that doesn’t explain it. Why do you moan?�� “I moan this way ’cause he’s dead,�� she said. “Then tell me, who is that laughing upstairs?�� “Them’s my sons. They glad.�� “Yes, I can understand that too,�� I said. “I laughs too, but I moans too. He promised to set us free but he never could bring hisself to do it. Still I loved him …�� “Loved him? You mean ��?�� “Oh yes, but I loved something else even more.�� “What more?�� “Freedom.�� “Freedom,�� I said. “Maybe freedom lies in hating.�� “Naw, son, it’s in loving. I loved him and give him the poison and he withered away like a frost-bit apple. Them boys woulda tore him to pieces with they homemade knives.�� “A mistake was made somewhere,�� I said, “I’m confused.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“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? And wait until I reveal how truly irresponsible I am. Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“There's nothing like isolating a man to make him think.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple. But not anymore.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Don’t laugh at fools. Some are His.”
― Ralph Ellison, Juneteenth

“And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisble Man

“Live with your head in the lion’s mouth. I want you to overcome ’em with yeses, undermine ’em with grins, agree ’em to death and destruction, let ’em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open.�� They thought the old man had gone out of his mind. He had been the meekest of men. The younger children were rushed from the”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“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.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I could see it now, see it clearly and in growing magnitude. It was not suicide, but murder. The committee had planned it.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“My name is Peter Wheatstraw, I’m the Devil’s only son-in-law,”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“No, I believe in diversity, and I think that the real death of the United States will come when everyone is just alike.”
― Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act

“There's always an element of crime in freedom.”
― Ralph Ellison

“That which we do is what we are. That which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have been; or that which we hope to be. Thus our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tall tale told by inattentive idealists.”
― Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act

“There is, by the way, an area in which a man's feelings are more rational than in his mind, and it is precisely in that area that his will is pulled in several directions at the same time. You might sneer at this, but I know now. I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself. So after years of trying to adopt the opinions of others I finally rebelled. I am an invisible man. Thus, I have come a long way and returned and boomeranged a long way from the point in society toward which I originally aspired.”
― Ralph Ellison