Invisible Man Quotes
"I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
"It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves."
"You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds."
"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."
"I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either."
"Without light I am not only invisible, but formless as well; and to be unaware of one's form is to live a death."
"I remember that I am invisible and walk softly so as not to awaken the sleeping ones."
"To whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me?"
"Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action."
"But once a man gets himself in a tight spot like that there ain't much he can do."
"I flew in but I had to walk out. I had to move without moving."
"Everything was happening inside of me like a fight was going on."
"The more wriggling and twisting we done trying to get away, the more we wanted to stay."
"I know there ain't nothing like what I went through, I can't tell how it was."
"You got hold to it and you can't let go even though you want to."
"Mr. Norton, sir, it's time we were getting back to the campus."
"It sounds like a woman who was watching a team of wild horses run down her baby child and she can't move."
"I makes up my mind that I'm going to take whatever she gives me."
"Maybe if you suffer for it, it will be best."
"I don't aim to birth no sin for folks to look at all the rest of my life."
"The only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie!"
"College for Negroes! Boy, what do you know other than how to ruin an institution in half an hour?"
"Your poor judgment has caused this school incalculable damage."
"Instead of uplifting the race, you've torn it down."
"You've got to be disciplined, boy. There's no ifs and ands about it."
"I probably could no longer digest very many of them."
"What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me?"
"I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple."
"Continue on the yam level and life would be sweet."
"Leave us alone," she cried, "leave us alone!"
"They can come in your home and do what they want to you."
"I looked at the old people, feeling my eyes burn, my throat tighten."
"You don't know what you're doing, but I'll shoot!"
"Then at the top of the stairs they were pushing against the man."
"I saw the old woman fall backwards, and the crowd exploded."
"That wise man who was strong enough to do the legal thing."
"Look at him," I cried. "With his blue steel pistol and his blue serge suit."
"So we've been dispossessed, and what's more, he thinks he's God."
"They're living, but dead. Dead-in-living . . . a unity of opposites."
"We are working for a better world for all people."
"I'm so sorry that this had to happen," she said.
"All you have to do is shake things up a bit."
"Don't do to go around in this cold weather without something in your belly."
"You really give me a pleasant surprise this morning -- and if that's a lie, I hope something big'll bite me!"
"I determined to get rid of the coins and broken iron at the first ash can."
"We keep our place clean and respectable and we don't want you field niggers coming up here from the South and ruining things."
"I hope they catch you and put your ass under the jail!"
"WE ARE THE TRUE PATRIOTS! THE CITIZENS OF TOMORROW'S WORLD!"
"You was moving so fast I thought I wasn't going to be able to stop you."
"And if there's something bothering you, it's my duty to do what I can to clear it up."
"Through no effort of my own, I have economic security and leisure, but what is that, really, when so much is wrong with the world?"
"Life is so terribly empty and disorganized without it."
"It provides women the full opportunity for self-expression, which is so very important."
"One just has to respond, even when one isn't too clear as to your meaning."
"It's as though every day were Leap Year -- which is as it should be."
"What about those of us who shoot up from the South into the busy city like wild jacks-in-the-box broken loose from our springs?"
"His name was Clifton and he was full of illusions."
"He thought he was a man when he was only Tod Clifton."
"His name was Tod Clifton, he believed in Brotherhood, he aroused our hopes and he died."
"The Brotherhood isn't the Negro people; no organization is."