Ishmael Reed Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity.
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They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
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I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.
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Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it.
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Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.
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Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.
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Tell your idea to whomever will listen, and you'll get valuable market feedback before writing a single line of code.
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When I began writing science fiction in the middle '60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness; now the lead time seems more like eighteen months.
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I am writing something which I find satisfying and which I am prepared to put my name to as a composer.
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Do activities you're passionate about - which make your heart and soul feel perky - including things like working out, cooking, painting, writing, yoga, hiking, walking, swimming, being in nature, being around art, or reading inspiring books.
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Maybe I spent more time dwelling on emotions than some people, and maybe that's why I ended up writing.
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Imagination is an infinite resource that cannot be diminished by overuse or underuse.
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I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.
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I started writing my own things when I was about 8.
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I am perfectly capable of writing things about myself that one doesn't discuss in polite company, but I was raised by people who said you don't discuss politics, you don't discuss religion, and you certainly don't discuss people's sex lives.
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I used to be opposed to collaboration, and that's probably why the music in the past wasn't as good. Writing with other people, especially the great writers that I've had the privilege to write with, it activates something in your mind that you wouldn't use alone.
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So it was just a case of getting a bunch of songs that I had been writing for years but hadn't recorded together, and the result was My Own Best Enemy.
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With memoir, you have the clay of your life to work with. When you're writing a novel, you have to make the clay first.
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Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing M*A*S*H; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling.
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There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.
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The time I kill is killing me.
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For a long period of history, you were what people said about you, and if your reputation was stained, you were in very serious trouble. People fought duels over this. Then it fades away historically.
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Apprenticeship is one of the dearest roles of childhood, not just watching Dad or Mother, but being taught a hands-on trade.
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Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.
