Ishmael Reed

“Wrath is a kind of lazy person's revenge.”

“I don't think I'm a satirist. I'm a realist.”

“I was influenced by the blues. The blues is a narrative.”

“Don't leave a lot of things to the readers. They are not as smart as you are.”

“Writing is fighting.”

“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.”

“A writer who is a Negro is a Negro writer.”

“The problem with the West is that it has assigned to itself a single story.”

“One of the reasons that I think I have been controversial is that I have been willing to say what I believe in.”

“I try to do something different in every book.”

“The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.”

“My critics have accused me of being a bully, but I'm not. I'm a counter-puncher.”

“I think that the artist is a kind of prophet. He is the last to be heard.”

“There is a long tradition of black incompetence in the United States.”

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of words.”

“The establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight.”

“I think each generation has to chart its own course.”

“The American narrative is a narrative of innocence.”

“Twain was a real satirist. He was not a cynic.”