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I think I have a pugnacious style. My style is not pretty. I don't use words like amber or opaque.
Ishmael Reed
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Ishmael Reed
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: February 22
Author
Journalist
Lyricist
Novelist
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Poet
Science Fiction Writer
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Chattanooga
Tennessee
Ishmael Scott Reed
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Pugnacious
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Opaque
Amber
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More quotes by Ishmael Reed
What was once dormant is now a Creeping Thing
Ishmael Reed
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.
Ishmael Reed
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.
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
Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.
Ishmael Reed
History is the story of warfare between secret societies.
Ishmael Reed
As for [Amiri] Baraka, he and I have disagreements. I mean, he becomes a demagogue when there's an audience. He's a nice guy in private. I mean I like the guy he's a terrific writer. I've published two of his books. Baraka is one of these fundamentalists who is prone to idol worship.
Ishmael Reed
The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.
Ishmael Reed
I asked Joe Weixlmann why he would print a death threat like that in light of the fact that there are all of these armed ideological nuts wandering around loose. He said that for him, to ice someone means to reprimand them.
Ishmael Reed
The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.
Ishmael Reed
David Simon goes to the Jewish Weekly and said he's made all this money, but he can't enjoy it because of criticism by people like Ishmael Reed.
Ishmael Reed
Do you think that Gwendolyn Brooks would give an award to someone who hated Black women, the lie that was circulated throughout New York and reached all the way down to Martinique where I was a guest Professor? The lie was circulated by people who don't read my books.
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
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
The cultural wars of the sixties are over. I've reconciled with those who were my critics and opponents years ago. I was at odds with some those who were Black nationalists. Yet when feminists attempted to end my career and leave me as literary road kill, it was the Black nationalists who came to my rescue.
Ishmael Reed
For generations comedians have made jokes about Scots-Irish in the South inter-breeding. I am my own grandpa and all that stuff you know, because they all were marrying their first cousins.
Ishmael Reed
Whites have been the most subsidized group in the history of the United States and maybe the history of the world, while Blacks were enslaved and were the assets of Whites.
Ishmael Reed
Multicultural is not a description of a category of American writing-it is a definition of all American writing.
Ishmael Reed
I think there are fundamentalists all over the world. I think all religions have fundamentalists who have different interpretations of scriptures that are very vague.
Ishmael Reed
Richard Price, who has made a fortune writing fake ghetto books, says he takes a cab into the ghetto, transcribes Black speech for a brief time and returns home. His fake ghetto books have bought him a townhouse in Gramercy Park and home on Staten Island.
Ishmael Reed
