Ishmael Reed Quotes
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.
Quotes to Explore
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Women are blessed with energy - a power which is unique. I have been very fortunate to have played strong women and explored their strengths through my films.
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One of the first major storylines that 'All My Children' featured was Erica Kane, a rebellious daughter, and her mother, sort of a matriarchal type, who was trying to guide her daughter to a safer place.
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Before my son was born, I use to tell people that I was looking forward to no longer being the star of my own movie; then Harry came along, and it was like, 'Whoa, I'm really not!'
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I'd love to have William Faulkner, Beethoven and Bach over. I want to find out what makes those guys tick!
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I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew up watching movies and not watching plays.
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For a startup, you need to stay small so the others don't attack, or you aim to be one of the big guys. If you don't do it right, you might lose everything.
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I had a very modest upbringing.
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When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the window. The only way out is through the sentences.
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One of the problems with putting Huck Finn into a movie or on the stage is, you always make the white people stupid and racist. The point is, they don't know they're racist.
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Lincoln emancipated nobody. The man freed not a single slave.
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I'm not going to be bullied or pushed around by the group of the day. You've got to have political courage. You've got to have your own inner beliefs.
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I think there is an enormous appetite for great roles for women. You can see that clearly with things like 'The Hunger Games.'
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The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death.
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I have a pretty good family. But ever since I was little, I just felt like I wanted to be on my own. It was the same thing about school.
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A tremendous amount of needless pain and suffering can be eliminated by ensuring that health insurance is universally available.
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'Gold,' says the Consul, knowing that this is the only syllable that has held its power over the ages.
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It was so odd to have young kids singing 'Lovin' Feelin' because they knew it from 'Top Gun.'
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American television, for all its faults, still has a black presence in shows and even in commercials. You'll see black people in automobile ads, black women starring on their own television shows. We don't see that on British television.
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It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.
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If I could create an ideal world, it would be an England with the fire of the Elizabethans, the correct taste of the Georgians, and the refinement and pure ideals of the Victorians.
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For most of American history, of course, the important religious divides were between denominations - not just between Protestants and Catholics and Jews but between Lutherans and Episcopalians and Southern Baptists and the other endlessly fine-tuned sects.
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Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to.
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The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit.
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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.
