# Quote — Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

> [Y]ou both fail to understand what is happening to you. You cannot see or hear or smell the truth of what you see — and you, looking for destiny! It’s classic! And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and sees far less than you. Poor stumblers, neither of you can see the other. To you he is a mark on the score-card of your achievement, a thing and not a man; a child, or even less — a black, amorphous thing. And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force...

- Author: [Ralph Ellison](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison.md)
- Book: [Invisible Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ralph_Ellison#Invisible_Man_(1952)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/y-ou-both-fail

## More from this book

> Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway?—diversity is the word.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/whence-all-this.md)

> I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/i-do-not.md)

> And yet I am what they think I am.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/ralph-ellison/invisible-man/and-yet-i-am-what.md)