Ralph Ellison

"For, like almost everyone else in our country, I started out with my share of optimism. I believed in hard work and progress and action, but now, after first being 'for' society and then 'against' it, I assign myself no rank or any limit, and such an attitude is very much against the trend of the times. But my world has become one of infinite possibilities. What a phrase - still it's a good phrase and a good view of life, and a man shouldn't accept any other; that much I've learned underground. Until some gang succeeds in putting the world in a strait jacket, its definition is possibility."

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Source: Ralph Ellison (1980). “Invisible man”, Vintage

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Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison

Novelist, Essayist

Ralph Ellison was an American novelist and essayist, best known for his groundbreaking work 'Invisible Man,' which explores themes of identity and race.

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Ralph Ellison Novelist, Essayist

"If you can show me how I can cling to that which is real to me, while teaching me a way into the larger society, then and only then will I drop my defenses and hostility, and I will sing your praises and help you to make the desert bear fruit."

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