Quotes from book
Invisible Man
Invisible Man is a novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues facing African Americans early in the twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity.
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 1.
Context: All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 13.
“And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.”
Variant: And I knew that it was better to live out one's own absurdity than to die for that of others.
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 25.
“Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”
Epilogue (last line of the novel).
Source: Invisible Man (1952)
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 1.
“I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.”
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 21.
Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 6.
Epilogue.
Source: Invisible Man (1952)
