I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also… - Ralph Ellison

And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own.

When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical.

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.

Everywhere I've turned somebody has wanted to sacrifice me for my own good — only /they/ were the ones who benefited. And now we start on the old sacrificial merry-go-round. At what point do we stop?