Ishmael Reed Quotes

• Hoo-doo, which in America flowered in New Orleans, was an unorganized religion without ego-games or death worship.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When State Magic fails unofficial magic becomes stronger.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Black, Matter, Fact

• 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

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Black, Happens

• Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writing, Poetry, Hard

• 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

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Baseball, Become

• 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

  Topics in Society

  Tags in Problem

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

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Art

  Tags in Bad, Free

• 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

  Topics in Job

• Every suggested idea produces a corresponding physical reaction. Every idea constantly repeated ends by being engraved upon the brain, provoking the act which corresponds to that idea.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Brain, Idea, Act

• You must give to get, You must sow the seed, before you can reap the harvest.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Give, Reap

• With a definite, step-by-step plan – ah, what a difference it makes! You cannot fail, because each step carries you along to the next, like a track.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Makes, Plan

• To begin with, you must realize that any idea accepted by the brain is automatically transformed into an action of some sort. It may take seconds or minutes or longer – but ideas always produce a reaction of some sort.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Brain, Idea

• One learns to itch where one can scratch.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Scratch, Learns

• Do you think that you shall enter the Garden of Bliss without such trials as came to those who passed before you?

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Before, Trials

• To know is to control.

  Ishmael Reed

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Control

Ishmael Reed (16)

Birth:	22nd February, 1938
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Novelist, Playwriter, Poet

About

Ishmael Scott Reed is an American poet, essayist, songwriter, playwright, and novelist, as well as being an editor and publisher. Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.

Related Authors

• Shashi Deshpande
• Iain Pears
• Frances Brooke
• Anthony Trollope
• Jillian Medoff
• Kristin Hannah
• Luanne Rice
• Ellen Kushner
• Armistead Jones Maupin Jr
• Judith Krantz

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 28th September

Births

• 1887 - Avery Brundage
• 1952 - Sylvia Kristel
• 1954 - Steve Largent
• 1905 - Max Schmeling
• 1925 - Seymoure Cray

Deaths

• 1618 - Joshua Sylvester
• 2000 - Pierre Trudeau
• 1966 - Lillian Eugenia Smith
• 1895 - Louis Pasteur
• 1993 - Peter De Vries