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 naïve. I was…

Quote by Ralph Ellison

Topics: Being Yourself Quotes

Education is all a matter of building bridges

Education is all a matter of building bridges

America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain....

America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain....

I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone,...

I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone,...

When I discover who I am, I'll be free.

When I discover who I am, I'll be free.

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past...

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past...

Hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.

Hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.

Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and...

Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and...

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also...

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also...

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

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

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

Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church...

Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church...

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones...

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones...

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of...

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of...

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past...

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past...

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

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

By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity...

By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity...

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed...

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed...

The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's...

The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's...

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

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

There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists,...

There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists,...