Ralph Ellison Quotes

If I walk up to a bar, they wont see that I'm standing there.

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.

I'm very, very used to feeling anonymous, you know?

When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.

There is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exists or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence

This is the ultimate cruelty, isn't it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it's only air--too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world.

When we started, it was based on lies. It's changing now. There are no secrets in the business. You've got to come with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's becoming very confusing.

Fine counsel is confusing, but example is always clear

We are experiencing a real confusion here in the United States, you know. Why is it OK to drink, but it's not OK to take drugs? Blah, blah, blah. What's a crime? What's criminality? What can you do, what can't you do, and so forth. All these things are really confusing. A lot of it is really contradictory; it doesn't really make sense.

One of the advantages or disadvantages of the way in which we live in these modern days is that we are ceasing to feel. That is to say we do not permit ourselves to be affected by either death or misfortune, provided these natural calamities leave our own persons unscathed.

You never want to intentionally make a confusing movie.

Make sense who may. I switch off.

Relationships are not straight forward. They're not black and white. Sometimes things don't always going in a straight line, and that's okay. Love can be very confusing.

The city had defeated her, just like they said it would. Like some overcrowded party, no one had noticed her arrival, and would notice if she left.

Once you get older, people stop listening to what you say. It's very agreeable once you get used to it.

If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em.

I think they find it - they find me quite confusing, because - they know the music, but they don't know anything about me because I keep a very private lifestyle so they end up making up stories as such. But I don't really concern myself too much about them.

I didn't expect to enter into tabloid trivia or anything like that. So I suspect my perspective and a lot of my ideas changed fairly drastically. It was also rather confusing.

Getting lost in human perception is a very scary idea.

The job of the novel is to be true to the confusion, but not so confusing that you turn the reader off.

They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly. No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried. Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked. They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone." And what difference does that make?

When you can not find someone, it is because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere

Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.

He looked the boy up and down as if he had never seen a child before and wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with one: eat it, ignore it or kick it down the stairs.