237 Quotes by Ralph Ellison

I'm not a separatist. The imagination is integrative. That's how you make the new -- by putting something else with what you've got. And I'm unashamedly an American integrationist.

If only all the contradictory voices shouting in my head would calm down and sing a song in unison, whatever it was I wouldn't care as long as they sang without dissonance.

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 it all, I find that I love.

We don't all dig Shakespeare uniformly, or even 'Little Red Riding Hood.' The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life.

Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.

The clock ticked with empty urgency, as though trying to catch up with the time. In the street a siren howled.

I blundered into writing.

Words are your business, boy. Not just the word. Words are everything. The key to the rock, the answer to the question.

All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.