Ralph Ellison said this quote

Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.

~ Ralph Ellison

But what a feeling can come over a man just from seeing the things he believes in and hopes for symbolized in the concrete form of a man. In something that gives a focus to all the other things he knows to be real. Something that makes unseen things manifest and allows him to come to his hopes and dreams through his outer eye and through the touch and feel of his natural hand.

~ Ralph Ellison

God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.

~ Ralph Ellison

I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid.

~ Ralph Ellison