Ralph Ellison Quotes

• God is love, I said, but art’s the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Art

• Part of the problem for the invisible man was that he was invisible to himself, that he didn’t grasp his own complexity.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Uncategorized

• All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest… 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

  Topics in Uncategorized
• 

  Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Humanity, Life

  Tags in Play, Defeat

• The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in End, Lies

• If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Power, Uncategorized

  Tags in Word

• The understanding of art depends finally upon one’s willingness to extend one’s humanity and one’s knowledge of human life.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Art, Life

  Tags in Human

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Relatives, Ancestors

• There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Truth, Uncategorized

  Tags in Sociology, Historic, Scientists

• The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writing, Act

• There are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in World, Dangerous

• When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Discover

• Education is all a matter of building bridges.

  Ralph Ellison

  Topics in Education

  Tags in Building, Matter

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

  Ralph Ellison

• 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

• Hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.

  Ralph Ellison

• Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

  Ralph Ellison

• Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

  Ralph Ellison

• Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

  Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison (22)

Birth:	1st March, 1914
Death:	16th April, 1994
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Novelist, Writer

About

Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.He also wrote Shadow and Act, a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory.

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