Ralph Ellison

"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."

"The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing."

"...to hell with being ashamed of what you liked."

"Sometimes I feel the need to reaffirm all of it, the whole unhappy territory and all the things loved and unlovable in it, for all of it is part of me."

"Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?"

"Without the possibility of action, all knowledge comes to one labeled "File and forget."

"Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life's crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart."

"I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of all I find that I lov…"