4 Ralph Ellison Quotes on Writing

Ralph Ellison quotes on writing

1. The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.

4. I am a novelist, not an activist... But I think that no one who reads what I write or who listens to my lectures can doubt that I am enlisted in the freedom movement. As an individual, I am primarily responsible for the health of American literature and culture. When I write, I am trying to make sense out of chaos. To think that a writer must think about his Negroness is to fall into a trap.

7. By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.

10. Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.