Top Ishmael Reed Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Ishmael Reed Biography

Ishmael Scott Reed (born February 22, 1938) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor and publisher, who is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture. Perhaps his best known work is Mumbo Jumbo (1972), a sprawling and unorthodox novel set in 1920s New York that has been ranked among the 500 most important books in the Western Canon.

Read about Ishmael Reed in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Ishmael Reed Quotes

One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

Book, Reading, Joy, Shared, Joys

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

Art, Bad, Enterprise, Ideas

I was on a panel with light skinned Blacks and a famous gay science fiction writer, who were complaining about how Blacks are against gays and light skinned Blacks and how intolerant Blacks are of different groups. My position was that Blacks were among the most humanistic, tolerant groups in the country and that across the street from my house in Oakland was one inhabited by White gays.

Country, Gay, Intolerant, Light, Oakland

I consider racism to be a medical problem. Racists need serious medical and psychiatric help, because they are killing themselves and making others suffer along with them.

Help, Killing, Medical, Medical Problems, Racism, Suffering

The plays raise issues that are ignored in other forums.

Forums, Ignored, Issues, Play

My generation of writers has been prone to premature illness and death, especially the women. When Black male writers meet it's like a session of the American Diabetic Association.

Black, Diabetic, Generations, Males, Session, Women

The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes--McCarthy and Stalin--that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.

Art, Book, Center, New York, Obsessed, Produce

Howard University holds something called "Heart's Day," an all day ceremony in which a writer is honored. I was the recipient of this honor. It's a wonderful ceremony that Eleanor Traylor chair of English at Howard University organizes for writers. Writers from around the country came to pay tribute to my work. It was very flattering.

Country, Heart, Honor, Honored, Writers

Currently, U. S. society has been encouraged by its political and subsidized mass-media intelligentsia to view U. S. life as a continual "morning in America" paradise, where the only social problems occur in the inner cities. Psychologists call this denial.

America, Inner, Morning, Political, Problems, Views

As a writer, you explore all kinds of different emotions.

Different, Emotion, Kind, Kinds, Writer

I'm sure that a previous generation of Jews who published radical newspapers and journals would be critical of [David] Simon's projects. These were left wingers who suffered casualties in some of bloodiest strikes in American history.

American History, Generation, Generations, History, Published, Would Be

I try to do what has never been done before.

Trying, Done

Two of the great leaders of the past - Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass - had White fathers - who deserted them. Now Margo Jefferson, who is hard on me and the fellas, wrote in the Times that she has nocturnal, erotic fantasies about John Wayne. What's up with these feminists? Do you see these double standards these feminists have? They dream about John Wayne, but they're hard on us [Black men].

Double, Dream, Erotic, Father, Hard, Past

If the British prose style is Churchillian, America is the tobacco auctioneer, the barker; Runyon, Lardner, W. W. , the traveling salesman who can sell the world the Brooklyn Bridge every day, can put anything over on you and convince you that tomatoes grow at the South Pole.

America, Bridges, Brooklyn Bridge, Prose, Sell, Tobacco

I've always wondered why European politicians as a group seemed brighter than American politicians as a group. Maybe it's becausemany American politicians have the race issue to fall back on. They become lazy, suspicious of innovative ideas, and as a result American institutions atrophy.

Fall, America, Issues, Innovative, American, Suspicious

There would be no Rock and Roll without Ike Turner, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, etc. Fake ghetto books and fake ghetto music. Elvis Presley, whom they idol, is merely a karaoke makeover of James Brown and Chuck Berry.

Book, Chuck, Fats, Ghetto, Rocks, Roll

How does the [New York] Times treat White pathology? They reported an epidemic of heroin addiction in the Philadelphia suburbs. which included emergency admissions and overdoses; these White people in the suburbs were doing heroin like it was going out of style. I counted the words: the article consisted of 200 words. "Heroin Epidemic" in the back section. Out here in California, the typical drug addict is a housewife or suburban White woman.

200, California, Epidemic, New York, People, White

I wasn't part of any sixties movement. I'm skeptical of movements. I'm part of the times that I'm in.

Movement, Sixties, Sixty, Skeptical, Times

In Haitian mythology there is the figure Ghede, who in West Africa, is Iku, whose role is to show "each man his devil. " He's represented by a figure wearing a top hat and smoking a cigar. That's my gig.

Africa, Cigar, Devil, Men, Smoking

I guess when it comes to this privileged White racist feminist movement they respect someone who treats them rough: John Wayne. Frank Sinatra. Phillip Roth.

Feminist, Frank, Phillip, Racist, Sinatra, White

1