“The blues is an art of ambiguity, an assertion of the irrepressibly human over all circumstances, whether created by others or by one's own human failing.”

— Ralph Ellison

"Remembering Jimmy" (1958), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1995), p. 277.

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Ralph Ellison 82

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

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