Quotes by Ishmael Reed

About Ishmael Reed:

Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor and publisher, who is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Free enterprise is not a bad idea and has produced art.

Ishmael Reed

I had no systematic way of learning but proceeded like a quilt maker, a patch of knowledge here a patch there but lovingly knitted. I would hungrily devour the intellectual scraps and leftovers of the learned.

Ishmael Reed

Dualism::In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man I am outside of history. i wish i had some peanuts, it looks hungry there in the cage. i am outside of history. its hungrier than i thot.

Ishmael Reed

No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.

Ishmael Reed

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

Ishmael Reed

Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.

Ishmael Reed

I finally had to go to the American Civil Liberties Union here in northern California to get my reply published to what I considered to be a hatchet job done by Stanley Crouch.

Ishmael Reed

I'm sure that you could go back and make a graph showing that all the killings of black males increased in times of economic difficulty. As a matter of fact, a black man was lynched last year.

Ishmael Reed

That kind of thing happens to black people every day in this country, and they don't receive that kind of sentence he did, which was to go to prison on the weekends; I think he lectured there-an outside lecturer.

Ishmael Reed

I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.

Ishmael Reed

Author Bio

  • NameIshmael Reed
  • DescriptionWriter
  • BornFebruary 22, 1938
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Author; Novelist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; MacArthur Fellows Program