Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those… - Ralph Ellison

It was unbelievable, but perhaps only the unbelievable could be believed. Perhaps the truth was always a lie.

Nothing, storm or flood, must get in the way of our need for light and ever more and brighter light. The truth is the light and light is the truth.

They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their own voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves and I'd help them. I laughed. Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men . . . For all they were concerned, we were so many names scribbled on fake ballots, to be used at their convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a joke, an absurd joke.