Ellison Invisible Man Quotes & Sayings

If you're looking at people like Patrice Lumumba, you are looking at people who had a very definite plan, and events overran them. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

Whence all this passion towards conformity anyway? Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you will have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business, they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive towards colorlessness? But seriously and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. — Ralph Ellison

You might as well ask why a middle-aged man with no criminal record might put a paper bag over his head and rob a bank. I acted out of personal desperation. — Aldrich Ames

Any business owner or entrepreneur knows that there is no luck or good fortune about keeping a company up and running. It's nothing but hard work, consistency, determination, courage, staying focused, accepting failure, making changes, and simply keeping on with the grind. — Enaka Yembe

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. 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. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man! — Ralph Ellison

One of the most widely read novels by a black American is Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man.' It is his masterwork - it won the National Book Award in 1953 and catapulted my man to the highest levels of literary esteem. — Victor LaValle

Just as producers often give consumers things they want but didn't think to ask for, consumers sometimes come up with surprising uses for new inventions. When a new product appears, it can uncover dissatisfactions and desires no one knew were there. — Virginia Postrel

Which had a top layer of truth to it, but latticed, like the caramel on the cronuts. — William Gibson

So why do I write, torturing myself to put it down? Because in spite of myself I've learned some things. Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "file and forget," and I can neither file nor forget. Nor will certain ideas forget me; they keep filing away at my lethargy, my complacency. Why should I be the one to dream this nightmare? — Ralph Ellison

Be extra careful when buying into companies and industries that are the current darlings of the financial community ... — Philip Arthur Fisher

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. — Ralph Ellison

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. — Ralph Ellison

Spend at least some of your training time, and other parts of your day, concentrating on what you are doing in training and visualizing your success. — Grete Waitz

Then too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. — Ralph Ellison

For now I had begun to believe, despite all the talk of science around me, that there was a magic in spoken words. — Ralph Ellison

The project of Ralph Ellison's 'Invisible Man' is exactly that: to assert the beautiful, bountiful, chaotic complexity of one black American male. And, by extension, all black American males. — Victor LaValle

I always feel a little blue when a fun trip is over. The planning and anticipation of a vacation, and then the trip itself, are always so much fun. Getting home and back to real life always makes me feel a little empty. — Karey White

You weren't afraid of me when I was Wolf," he said. "Why are you afraid of Nathan?"
"He's got big feet!"
"What?"
An insulted-sounding arrroooo came from the other side of the door, a reminder that Wolves also had big ears. — Anne Bishop

Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun, grow pure by being purely shone upon. — Thomas Moore

Dualism::In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
I am outside of history. i wish i had some peanuts, it looks hungry there in the cage.
i am outside of history. its hungrier than i thot. — Ishmael Reed

Anybody can do their best, but we are helped by the Spirit of God to do better than our best. — Catherine Bramwell-Booth

You see," he said turning to Mr Norton, "he has eyes and ears and a good distended African nose, but he fails to understand the simple facts of life. Understand. Understand? It's worse than that. He registers with his senses but short-circuits his brain. Nothing has meaning. He takes it in but he doesn't digest it. Already he is - well, bless my soul! Behold! a walking zombie! Already he's learned to repress not only his emotions but his humanity. He's invisible, a walking personification of the Negative, the most perfect achievement of your dreams, sir! The mechanical man! — Ralph Ellison

I can hear you say, "What a horrible, irresponsible bastard!" And you're right. I leap to agree with you. 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? And wait until I reveal how truly irresponsible I am. Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement. — Ralph Ellison

I could hardly get to sleep for dreaming of revenge. — Ralph Ellison

And I love light. Perhaps you'll think it strange that an invisible man should need light, desire light, love light. But maybe it is exactly because I am invisible. Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form. — Ralph Ellison

I hate it when discovering something wonderful about someone else requires me discovering something pathetic about myself. — Kristen Chandler