Ralph Ellison Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Ralph Ellison quotes, Ralph Ellison sayings, and Ralph Ellison proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow. Ralph Ellison
It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow. Ralph Ellison
When I discover who I am, I'll be free. Ralph Ellison
Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Ralph Ellison
The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead. Ralph Ellison
The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically. Ralph Ellison
The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead. Ralph Ellison
The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the street a siren howled. Ralph Ellison
The world is a possibility if only you'll discover it. Ralph Ellison
The world is just as concrete, ornery, vile, and sublimely wonderful as before, only now I better understand my relation to it and it to me. Ralph Ellison
It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow. Ralph Ellison
Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it. Ralph Ellison
That... is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang Ralph Ellison
Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by. Ralph Ellison
When I discover who I am, I’ll be free. 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
What and how much has I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste. Ralph Ellison
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
A lot of living is done in the imagination. Ralph Ellison
I'm not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed. Ralph Ellison
The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead. Ralph Ellison