“Closed societies are now the flimsiest of illusions, for all the outsiders are demanding in.”

— Ralph Ellison

"Society, Morality and the Novel" (1957), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 726.

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Ralph Ellison82

American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer 1914–1994

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“Closed societies are now the flimsiest of illusions, for all the outsiders are demanding in.”

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