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Invisibility Quotes

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Invisibility Quotes

“Weakness or strength: there you are, strength. You do not know where you are going, nor why you are going; enter anywhere, reply to anything. They will no more kill you than if you were a corpse.” In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me. In cities, suddenly, the mud seemed red and black like a mirror when the lamp moves about in the adjoining room, like a treasure in the forest! Good luck, I cried, and I saw a sea of flames and smoke in the sky; to the right, to the left all the riches of the world flaming like a billion thunder-bolts.”

StrengthWeaknessRichesInvisibility
Book:A Season in Hell and the Drunken Boat
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“For the vile human pigs in life; the sloppy, disheveled, uncaring dregs, the ungrateful, and especially for the vicious, negative emotional peasants — there will only continue to be the hard and painful lessons you so desperately need. The invisible hand will hold you in your wretched place until your last breath — unless you evolve. If you are cruel and ignorant the invisible fist will pound you into oblivion until you submit, humble yourself and soften your hard heart.”

PainLearningIgnoranceLessonsEmotionsCrueltyEvolveDesperationSubmissionOblivionSoftnessHumblenessSloppyInvisibilityUncaringUngratefulnessDisheveled
Book:Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
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“The NSA may, or may not have rejected the invisible secret operative application form I never even bothered to have sent over to them. I'll never know...”

FormNationsSecretKnowledgeKnowingSecurityInvisibleBotherRejectionParadoxApplicationApprovalRejectedNational SecurityNothingBotheredNationApprovedNsaInvisibilityPost OfficeShapeAgentPostSpyingNationalRejectionsSendingBothersomeMoronismPostalSchroedingerOperative
Book:Nothing is here...
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“Taxi Driver” There’s a strange kind of liberation in being just a taxi driver— the freedom tucked inside that word: just. Because you’re just a driver, no one truly sees you. Yet you see it all— the absurdities, the shallows, the beauty, sorrow, joy, heartbreak—passengers unknowingly exposed. They grant you a diluted respect, sometimes half-fake, sometimes not at all— because you’re just a taxi driver. But they leave you be. No one's scheming to steal your seat. They want you in that seat. They ride with you because, for now, it’s a seat they don’t desire. Still, like all fleeting liberations, this too carries disappointment— a bittersweet sting. You realize the only reason they leave you alone is because you've escaped into a seat they never wanted in the first place. And that hurts.”

PovertyPowerWorking ClassHuman BehaviorTaxiClass StruggleInvisibilityArabic PoetryPower DynamicsRidesharing
Book:سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]
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“It is incumbent upon us to list you your fears lest you forget them: that of being needy; of being clingy; of being odd; of being invisible; of being visible; of being shamed; of being shunned; of being deceived; of being bullied, of being abandoned; of being hit; of being talked about; of being pitied; of being mocked; of being thought both "child" and at the same time "old woman"; of anger; of others; of making mistakes; of knowing instinctively; of sadness; of loneliness; of failure; of loss; of love; of death. If not death, then of living - of the body, its needs, its bits, its daring bits, its unwanted bits. Then the shudders, the ripples, our legs turning to pulp because of those shudders and ripples. On a scale of one to ten, nine and nine-tenths of us believe in the loss of our power and in succumbing to weakness, also in the slyness of others. In instability too, we believe. Nine and nine-tenths of us think we are spied upon, that we replay old trauma, that we are tight and unhappy and numb in our facial expression. These are our fears, Dear Susannah Eleanor Lizabetta Effie. Note them please. Remember these points please. Susannah, oh our Susannah. We are afraid.”

FearShameAgingPityInvisibilityVisibility
Book:Milkman
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“When identity is derived from projecting an image in the public realm, something is lost, some core of identity diluted, some sense of authority or interiority sacrificed. It is time to question the false equivalency between not being seen and hiding. And time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? Going unseen may be becoming a sign of decency and self-assurance. The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, propriety, autonomy, and voice. It is not about retreating from the digital world but about finding some genuine alternative to a life of perpetual display. It is not about mindless effacement but mindful awareness. Neither disgraceful nor discrediting, such obscurity can be vital to our very sense of being, a way of fitting in with the immediate social, cultural, or environmental landscape. Human endeavor can be something interior, private, and self-contained. We can gain, rather than suffer, from deep reserve.”

SufferingAwarenessIdentityMindfulnessSocial MediaIsolationPrivacyDigitalInvisibilityPublic Image
Book:How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency
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“Maxwell Arbus was the reason Saul lost an eye?" "Yes," Millie answers stiffly. "But that was a long time ago. Saul has moved on. So have I." Whatever checks I'd held on my emotions shatter. "Moved on?!" Whirling around, I storm at Millie, waving my arms like a maniacal marionette. "I don't care if it was so long ago we could only get with a TARDIS! There is no moving on because it's happening right now!”

HumorLossMoving OnInvisibilityTardis
Book:Invisibility
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“What could she do, bound as she was by the tyranny of silence? She dared not explain the girl to herself...that wilfully selfish tyranny of silence evolved by a crafty old ostrich of a world for its own well-being and comfort. The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that seeing nothing it might avoid Truth...if silence is golden it is also in this case, very expedient.”

IgnorancePrivilegeCommon SenseInvisibilityConventionQueerness
Author:Radclyffe Hall
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“A book about books is like a poem about poetry: Books are knowledge, paid for, all. Readers - horses in a stall. Stallions should always run. Lest they stale become, in turn. Running waters are most clear. In some books, you disappear – lose yourself, and track of time. How I wish that one was mine... Mine, to have, to write, to read... Mine, just like a flying steed. Mine, forever, - to improve. Would I then, of me, approve? I would not, I can't... myself. I'm but dust, swept off a shelf. Fly, can I, just 'til I'm settled, down, beside my flower, petalled.”

WritingBookRunningPoetryReadingWaterFreedomBooksFlowerPoemForgivenessHorseRoseDisappearInvisibleDustPoemsStillnessApprovalOwnershipFlowersCleaningNothingRiverSweepingPetalsStaleLosing YourselfHorsesDisappearanceInvisibilityStillBotanyStallionsWatersOwnerPetalApproveStallionShelfStallPetalled
Book:Nothing is here...
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“I realised I really was shy. And once I was in it, I couldn't escape. I'd go to talk and find my face was made of cement. Nothing would come out. On winter days, I'd feel myself turning grey at the edges and fading into the walls. Was this defensive strategy? It was paralysing. And it went on for years.”

LonelinessHelplessnessShynessInvisibilityIntroversionSocial AnxietyDefence Mechanisms
Book:Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World
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“Disability fluctuates, growing visible, then invisible, then visible again, becoming both ever-present and haunting. Such a problematizing of physical life added a new wrinkle to the genre's double/secret identity trope: the characters now interact with their shifting bodies as bodies with all the complications involved.”

SuperheroBody ImageLiterary CriticismInvisibilityDc ComicsMarvel ComicsDisability StudiesPhysical DisabilityJose AlanizPhysical ImpairmentSilver Age ComicsBodies As Bodies
Book:Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond
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“She relaxed her mind and let her body dissolve. Bone and tendon quivered until her arms, hands, and fingers looked like black specks waving in the dark. Soon she was free from gravity and drifting up the stairs. But as she twisted through the gloom, something foreign tangled with her invisible body. It wove through her with a furry tickle, leaving a pungent scent of decay. It didn't have the sensation of steam, dust, or smog. She curled back, trying to escape the sickening smell, but whatever it was moved with her, sinuous like a snake, coiling around her. She twirled, then sprang forward, but it held her. The air became thick and gluey, her cells no longer able to pull in oxygen through osmosis.”

Sci FiGoddessSuperpowerInvisibilityVanessa ClevelandBattling Demons
Book:Moon Demon
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“When she was younger, Ellie used to believe that her invisibility was a metaphor for something else, assuming it was her awkwardness, her fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. She had thought as she grew older, more confident, wiser, she would outgrow this not being noticed. But lately, Ellie really felt like a ghost. She would be in a place, but not really there. People looked through her, past her. Her invisibility had taken on a life of its own. It wasn't a metaphor anymore, or a defense mechanism or eccentric little tic. She was actually invisible. At least, that was how it felt to her. Ellie wondered whether her parents were to blame. They were, after all, children of the sixties who had met at a love-in or lie-down or something of that sort, about which Ellie knew little except that a lot of drugs had been involved. Could Ellie's lack of physical presence be a genetic mutation caused by acid or mushrooms? Ellie grew up on their hippie commune among the highest, densest redwoods, where they dug their hands deep into the soil and grew their own food, made their own clothes. So perhaps it is there that the mystery is solved. Ellie indeed was a child of the earth, a baby of beiges and taupes and browns and muted greens. Nature doesn't scream and shout, demanding constant attention, and neither did Ellie. Maybe her invisibility was just her blending right in.”

InvisibilityEarthyEllie PenhaliganChild Of Nature
Book:When Autumn Leaves
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“For most women (as for most men) links between sexism and speciesism are not readily apparent. We have been conditioned not to see exploitation. For example, men generally have no idea how patriarchy affects women—unless they go out of their way to learn. The same is true for women with regard to cows and pigs and chickens and turkeys. Both women and nonhuman animals have traditionally been viewed as property—"things” to be owned and controlled by those in power. While the plight of women is linked with that of nonhuman animals through a single system of oppression, through their comparative powerlessness and invisibility, and through sexual exploitation, it is important to elucidate these similarities through concrete examples. Links between women and nonhuman animals are nowhere more apparent than through the vulnerabilities of mothers and their young, and the control of pregnancies and offspring; this particular form of oppression is nowhere more blatant than on factory farms.”

MotherhoodExploitationVeganismPowerlessnessInvisibilityIntersectionalitySpeciesismSexual ExploitationFactory Farms
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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