Ralph Ellison Quotes

1913–1994 United States

Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1913 – April 16, 1994) was an American writer and academic known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.

United States
Educators
Essayists
Novelists
Short story writers

Also known as: Ellison, Ralph, Invisible Man

Random Ralph Ellison quote

63 quotes

I recall the sudden arpeggios of laughter lilting across the tender, springtime grass — gay-welling, far-floating, fluent, spontaneous, a bell-like feminine fluting, then suppressed; as though snuffed swiftly and irrevocably beneath the quiet solemnity of the vespered air now vibrant with somber chapel bells.

Invisible Man (1952)

[T]he 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.

Invisible Man (1952)

So she doesn't think Iʼm black enough. What does she want, a black-face comedian? [...] Maybe she wants to see me sweat coal tar, ink, shoe polish, graphite. What was I, a man or a natural resource?

Invisible Man (1952)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ralph Ellison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.