What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste! But what of those things which you actually didn't like, not because you were not supposed to like them, not because to dislike them was considered a mark of refinement and education - but because you actually found them distasteful? The very idea annoyed me. How could you know? It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple ...
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About Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison was a 20th-century American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. Read more on Wikipedia →