6 Quotes & Sayings By Ishmael Reed

Ishmael Reed is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright and poet. He has been the recipient of many awards for his relationship to poetry including the American Book Award, the Prix de Venise for Literature, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. Reed's novels include Mumbo Jumbo, The Free Lunch, The Anome and Give Us the World, Keep Ready. His plays include We Real Cool and Reed Plays.

No one says a novel has to be one thing....
1
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
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What is the American fetish about highways? They want to get somewhere, LaBas offers. Because something is after them, Black Herman adds. But what is after them? They are after themselves. They call it destiny. Progress. Ishmael Reed
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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
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Dualism::In Ralph Ellison's Invisible ManI 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
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Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination. Ishmael Reed