Invisible Man Quotes

“Now you're free of illusions,' Jack said, pointing to my seed wasting upon the air. 'How does it feel to be free of one's illusions?'

And now I answered, 'Painful and empty... But look... there's your universe, and that drip-drop upon the water you hear is all the history you've made, all you're going to make”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I yam what I yam!”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“If only all the contradictory voices shouting inside my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance; yes, and avoided uncertain extremes of the scale.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“For history records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with whom and with what results; who fought and who won and who lived to lie about it afterwards.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“...the younger crowd for whom I now felt a contempt such as only a disillusioned dreamer feels for those still unaware that they dream...”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“{H}istory records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with whom and with what results; who fought and who and who lived to lie about it afterwards. All things, it is said, are duly recorded--all things of importance, that is. But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are set down, those lies his keepers keep their power by." -- Ralph Ellison, in Invisible Man”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“They were all such a part of that other life that's dead that I can't remember them all. (Time was as I was, but neither that time nor that "I" are anymore.)”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I knew that they were about to attack the man and I was both afraid and
angry, repelled and fascinated. I both wanted it and feared the consequences, was
outraged and angered at what I saw and yet surged with fear; not for the man or
of the consequences of an attack, but of what the sight of violence might release
in me. And beneath it all there boiled up all the shock-absorbing phrases that I
had learned all my life. I seemed to totter on the edge of a great dark hole.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“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.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible 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 right open.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I'll teach you some good bad habits. You'll need 'em.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren’t simple a phantom in other people’s minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy… 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, Invisible Man

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

“{H}istory records the patterns of men's lives, they say: Who slept with whom and with what results; who fought and who won and who lived to lie about it afterwards. All things, it is said, are duly recorded--all things of importance, that is. But not quite, for actually it is only the known, the seen, the heard and only those events that the recorder regards as important that are set down, those lies his keepers keep their power by.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Can I say in twenty minutes what was building twenty-one years and ended in twenty seconds?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I've illuminated the blackness of my invisibility—and vice versa.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

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

“And that lie that success was a rising upward. What crummy lie they kept us dominated by. Not only could you travel upward toward success but you could travel downward as well; up and down, in retreat as well as in advance, crabways and crossways and around in a circle, meeting your old selves coming and going and perhaps all at the same time. How could I have missed it for so long? Hadn't I grown up around gambler-politicians, bootleggerjudges and sheriffs who were burglars; yes, and Klansmen who were preachers and members of
humanitarian societies. Hell, and hadn't Bledsoe tried to tell me what it was all about?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“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. For now I saw that I could agree with Jack without agreeing. And I could tell Harlem to have hope when there was no hope. Perhaps I could tell them to hope until I found the basis of something real, some firm ground for action that would lead them onto the plane of history. But until then I would have to move them without myself being moved.”
― 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

“Was it that she understood that we resented having others think that we were all entertainers and natural singers? But now after the mutual laughter something disturbed me: Shouldn't there be some way for us to be asked to sing? Shouldn't the short man have the right to make a mistake without his motives being considered consciously or unconsciously malicious? After all, he was singing, or trying to. What if I asked him to sing?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man