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Ralph Ellison :: That I Am Nobody But Myself !

All my life I had been looking for something,
and everywhere I turned
someone tried to tell me what it was.
I accepted their answers too,
though they were often in contradiction
and even self-contradictory.
I was naïve.
I was looking for myself
and asking everyone except myself questions
which I, and only I, could answer.
It took me a long time and much painful
boomeranging of my expectations to achieve
a realization everyone else appears to have been born with:
that I am nobody but myself.
~Ralph Ellison


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