Can it be, I thought, can it actually be? .......could he be all of them: Rine the runner and Rine the gambler and Rine the briber and Rine the lover and Rinehart the Reverend? Could he himself be both rind and heart? .....Rinehart the rounder. It was true as I was true. His world was possibility and he knew it. He was years ahead of me and I was a fool. I must have been crazy and blind. The world in which we lived was without boundaries...All boundaries down, freedom was not only the recognition of necessity, it was the recognition of possibility. And sitting there trembling I caught a brief glimpse of the possibilities posed by Rinehart’s multiple personalities…
Ralph EllisonTags: existentialism
Do they come to bury the others or to be entombed to give life or to receive it?
Ralph EllisonThey could laugh at him but they couldn't ignore him
Ralph EllisonTags: inspirational
i am invisible understand, simply because people refuse to see me
Ralph EllisonWhen we finally achieve the full right of participation in American life, what we make of it will depend upon our sense of cultural values, and our creative use of freedom, not upon our racial identification. I see no reason why the heritage of world culture—which represents a continuum—should be confused with the notion of race. Japan erected a highly efficient modern technology upon a religious culture which viewed the Emperor as a god. The Germany which produced Beethoven and Hegel and Mann turned its science and technology to the monstrous task of genocide; one hopes that when what are known as the “Negro” societies are in full possession of the world’s knowledge and in control of their destinies, they will bring to an end all those savageries which for centuries have been committed in the name of race. From what we are now witnessing in certain parts of the world today, however, there is no guarantee that simply being non-white offers any guarantee of this. The demands of state policy are apt to be more influential than morality. I would like to see a qualified Negro as President of the United States. But I suspect that even if this were today possible, the necessities of the office would shape his actions far more than his racial identity.
Ralph EllisonTags: identity culture governance
Power, for the writer….lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.
Ralph EllisonEvery serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.
Ralph EllisonTags: art writing novels writing-philosophy
Whence all this passion towards conformity anyway? Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you will have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business, they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive towards colorlessness? But seriously and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.
Ralph EllisonBeware of those who speak of the spiral of history; they are preparing a boomerang. Keep a steel helmet handy
Ralph EllisonOnce I saw a prizefighter boxing a yokel. The fighter was swift and
amazingly scientific. His body was one violent flow of rapid rhythmic action.
He hit the yokel a hundred times while the yokel held up his arms in
stunned surprise. But suddenly the yokel, rolling about in the gale of boxing
gloves, struck one blow and knocked science, speed and footwork as cold as a
Well-digger's posterior. The smart money hit the canvas. The long shot got the
nod. The yokel had simply stepped inside of his opponent's sense of time.
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