Ishmael Quotes

I have Black guys who tell me they put my books on their bed stands to read at night like something for guidance or information. That really pleases me a lot. I think my work has changed some things. It's changed me. ~ 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

One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind. ~ Ishmael Reed

Often we feel the need to say that a book isn't just about a particular time or place but is about the human spirit. People say this of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, or Night by Elie Wiesel, or A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. ~ Will Schwalbe

I consider racism to be a medical problem. Racists need serious medical and psychiatric help, because they are killing themselves and making others suffer along with them. ~ Ishmael Reed

I guess what I'd like to say is that people in Sierra Leone are human beings, just like Americans. They want to send their kids to school; they want to live in peace; they want to have their basic rights of life just like everyone else. I think we all owe an obligation to support people who want to do that. ~ Ishmael Beah

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

This wasn't a place for illusions; the reality here was the genuine happiness that came about from the natural magic of standing next to someone and being consumed by the fortitude in his or her humanity. ~ Ishmael Beah

Statistic: the us bureau of missing persons reports
that in 1968 over 100,000 people disappeared
leaving no solid clues
nor traceonly
a space
in the lives of their friends. ~ 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

But what have Cortes and Pizarro or the others to do with me?

You carry them in your blood as I carry the blood of Montezume; expeditions of them are harbored by your heart and your mind carries their supply trains. You've changed your helmet for a frontier hat while I have changed my robes for overalls and a black leather jacket. The costumes may have changed but the blood is still the same, gringo. ~ Ishmael Reed

My teeth became sour as I listened to his story. It was then that I understood why he was quiet all the time. ~ Ishmael Beah

At night it felt as if we were walking with the moon. It followed us under thick clouds and waited for us at the other end of dark forest paths. It would disappear with sunrise but return again, hovering on our path. Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. Under these stars I used to hear stories, but now it seemed as if it was the sky that was telling us a story as its stars fell, violently colliding with each other. The moon hid behind clouds to avoid seeing what was happening. ~ Ishmael Beah

Another California study counted 30,000 substance abusers who are pregnant are White woman. So, The Wire paints the picture of drug addiction, drug dealing, and drug abuse as being a specifically a Black issue. ~ Ishmael Reed

I had a very simple, unremarkable and happy life. And I grew up in a very small town. And so my life was made up of, you know, in the morning going to the river to fetch water - no tap water, and no electricity - and, you know, bathing in the river, and then going to school, and playing soccer afterwards. ~ Ishmael Beah

My novels and poems are meant to be read aloud. That's why jazz musicians have been able to adapt my stuff. ~ Ishmael Reed

My conception of New York City came from rap music. I envisioned it as a place where people shot each other on the street and got away with it; no one walked on the streets, rather people drove in their sports cars looking for nightclubs and for violence. ~ Ishmael Beah

I took out my grenade and put my fingers inside the pin. 'Do you boys want this to be your last meal, or do you want to answer his question? ~ Ishmael Beah

It isn't about knowing the most stories, child. It is about carrying the ones that are most important and passing them along. ~ Ishmael Beah

I think that when people like you , Mr. Von Vampton, say "The Negro Experience" you are saying that all Negroes experience the world the same way. In that way you can isolate the misfits who would propel them into penetrating the ceiling of this bind you and your assistants have established in this country. The ceiling above which no slave would be allowed to penetrate without stirring the kept bloodhounds. ~ Ishmael Reed

I think Black intellectuals see too deeply. That's the problem. It's a cause of anxiety, because we see things differently. ~ Ishmael Reed

I try to do what has never been done before. ~ Ishmael Reed

I concluded to myself that if I were the hunter, I would shoot the monkey so that it would no longer have the chance to put other hunters in the same predicament. ~ Ishmael Beah

As long as a man does not sin, he is feared. As soon as he sins, he himself is in fear. ~ Rabbi Ishmael

This was one of the consequences of the civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. ~ Ishmael Beah

The sun's brightness painted our shadows on the ground. ~ Ishmael Beah

One man carried his dead son. He thought the boy was still alive. The father was covered with his son's blood, and as he ran he kept saying, "I will get you to the hospital, my boy, everything will be fine." Perhaps it was necessary that he cling to false hopes, since they kept him running from harm. ~ Ishmael Beah

Captain Ahab drowned, he reminded himself; it was the trimmer, Ishmael, who survived. ~ Salman Rushdie

Ishmael had the posture of a classic general; the intellect of a cab driver. ~ Jarrett McCall

Children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance. ~ Ishmael Beah

For many observers, a child who has known nothing but war, a child for whom the Kalashnikov is the only way to make a living and for whom the bush is the most welcoming community, is a child lost forever for peace and development. I contest this view. For the sake of these children, it is essential to prove that another life is possible. ~ Ishmael Beah

I would try desperately to think about my childhood, but I couldn't. The war memories had formed a barrier that I had to break in order to think ~ Ishmael Beah

I learned that you are not free until you stop others from making you feel worthless. Because if you do not, you will eventually accept that you are worthless. ~ Ishmael Beah

Two of the great leaders of the past - Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass - had White fathers - who deserted them. Now Margo Jefferson, who is hard on me and the fellas, wrote in the Times that she has nocturnal, erotic fantasies about John Wayne. What's up with these feminists? Do you see these double standards these feminists have? They dream about John Wayne, but they're hard on us [Black men]. ~ Ishmael Reed

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

If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die. ~ Ishmael Beah

Howard University holds something called "Heart's Day," an all day ceremony in which a writer is honored. I was the recipient of this honor. It's a wonderful ceremony that Eleanor Traylor chair of English at Howard University organizes for writers. Writers from around the country came to pay tribute to my work. It was very flattering. ~ Ishmael Reed

Morning to ye! Morning to ye! ~ Herman Melville

We all have that capacity to lose our humanity when circumstances force us to do so. It's not specific to people who live in Africa or Latin America or Asia. And equally, we are capable of regaining ourselves. ~ Ishmael Beah

In the eleventh century, a Jerusalem rabbi still recalled with gratitude the mercy God had shown his people when he allowed the "Kingdom of Ishmael" to conquer Palestine. ~ Karen Armstrong

Ishmael was looking at him through narrowed eyes. "This is very important to you, this box."
"It's important to the world."
Ishmael said: "The sun rises, and the sun sets. Sometimes it rains. We live, then we die." He shrugged.
He would never understand, Wolff thought; but others would. ~ Ken Follett

Joel Chandler Harris, who created a multi billion dollar industry, everything from his books, to Disney's "Song of the South" based upon the Uncle Remus stories. He got his start by transcribing the stories of slave Informants. I'm sure that none them got a dime. ~ Ishmael Reed

There were guys who prayed at Tarawa,' said Ishmael. 'They still got killed, Mother. Just like the guys who didn't pray. It didn't matter either way. ~ David Guterson

The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer. ~ Ishmael Beah

But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth - pagans and all included - can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship? - to do the will of God - that is worship. And what is the will of God? - to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me - that is the will of God. ~ Herman Melville

We took a bowl each and started eating. He went back into the little room, and by the time he returned to the table with his own bowl of food to eat with us, we had already finished. He was shocked and looked around to see if we had done something else with the food. ~ Ishmael Beah

WHEN ISHMAEL WOKE, the walls of his trench were seeping water and the dawn was colder than it should have been, the sky an unnatural and ubiquitous pale color that had less to do with the rising of the sun than the passing of the night. ~ James Lee Burke

A lot of people, when they say 'forgive and forget,' they think you completely wash your brain out and forget everything. That is not the concept. What I think is you forgive and you forget so you can transform your experiences, not necessarily forget them but transform them, so that they don't haunt you or handicap you or kill you. ~ Ishmael Beah

It was not easy being a soldier, but we just had to do it. I have been rehabilitated now, so don't be afraid of me. I am not a soldier anymore; I am a child. ~ Ishmael Beah

Crusoe and Friday. Ishmael and Ahab. Daisy and Gatsby. Pip and Estella. Me. Me. Me. I am not alone. I am surrounded by words that tell me who I am, why I feel what I feel. Or maybe they just help me while away the hours as the rain pounds down on the porch roof, taking me away from the gloom and on to somewhere sunny, somewhere else. ~ Anna Quindlen

I had gone to a talent show - I was interested in American hip-hop music - with my older brother, to another town, and my town was attacked. I went from having an entire family to the next minute not having anything. It was very painful. ~ Ishmael Beah

We all find joy and radiance and a reason to move on even in the most dire of circumstances. Even in chaos and madness, there's still a beauty that comes from just the vibrancy of another human spirit. ~ Ishmael Beah

I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world. ~ Ishmael Beah

The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency
indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman
but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan. ~ 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

For those who have no voice, silence remains the unbroken truth. And every so often, that silence is torn by a roaring.- Mende Proverb, Sierra Leone ~ Ishmael Beah

All art must be for the end of liberating the masses. A landscape is only good when it shows the oppressor hanging from a tree. ~ Ishmael Reed

ONE OF THE UNSETTLING THINGS about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn't sure when or where it was going to end. ~ Ishmael Beah

In Ishmael I articulated a living mythology that is so integral to our culture that it's never examined or even noticed by anyone. It's like the sound of blood rushing through your veins - you hear it so constantly that you don't hear it at all. ~ Daniel Quinn

I put my hands behind my head and lay on my back, trying to hold on to the memories of my family. Their faces seemed to be far off somewhere in my mind, and to get to them I had to bring up painful memories. ~ Ishmael Beah

democracy and freedom began bouncing all over the world
like bad checks ~ Ishmael Reed

We must strive to be like the moon.' An old man in Kabati repeated this sentence often ... the adage served to remind people to always be on their best behavior and to be good to others. [S]he said that people complain when there is too much sun and it gets unbearably hot, and also when it rains too much or when it is cold. But, no one grumbles when the moon shines. Everyone becomes happy and appreciates the moon in their own special way. Children watch their shadows and play in its light, people gather at the square to tell stories and dance through the night. A lot of happy things happen when the moon shines. These are some of the reasons why we should want to be like the moon. ~ Ishmael Beah

I don't know why people always compare me [ with Amiri Baraka] I was never part of the Black Arts Repertory Theater or the Black Arts Movement; people who claim that I was are wrong. I was downtown. I was living in Chelsea when they were operating in Harlem. ~ Ishmael Reed

I knew I could never forget my past, but I wanted to stop talking about it so that I would be fully present in my new life. ~ Ishmael Beah

The great lesson I get from 'Moby-Dick' is that when the times are bad, when there is great foreboding, there are still ways to go about living. It's through Ishmael that I find a kind of overall cosmic approach to a meaningful life in this meaningless world. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick

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

That morning we thanked the men who had helped bury Saidu. "You will always know where he is laid," one of the men said. I nodded in agreement, but I know that the chances of coming back to the village were slim, as we had no control over our future. We know only how to survive. ~ Ishmael Beah

Jethro was the "priest of Midian" and the father-in-law of Moses (Exodus 3:1; 4:18). He was also called "Reuel" (Exodus 2:18) and is described as a Midianite in Numbers 10:29.
The original Midianites were probably descendants of Midian, one of Abraham's sons by Keturah (Genesis 25:1-4). The land where they lived then became known as "Midian" (Exodus 2:15). It is likely that the people who lived in the land of Midian were then all called Midianites, even if they were not descendants of Midian. For example, some descendants of Ishmael appear to be called Midianites (Genesis 37:25,28; Judges 8:24).
We don't know whether Jethro was a descendant of Midian, or whether he had some other ancestry but lived in the land of Midian.
In Judges 1:16, Jethro is described as a "Kenite" but that may not relate directly to his ancestry. The word keni in Aramaic means "smith" and it is thought that the Kenites may have been metal workers. ~ Rob J. Hyndman

We danced and laughed into the morning. But gradually we stopped. It was as if we all knew that we could be happy for only a brief moment. ~ Ishmael Beah

You don't have to see it to love it. Just love it for it is good and that is love. ~ Christian Thogolith

Sometimes a story does not make immediate sense - one has to listen and keep it in one's heart, in one's blood, until the day it will become useful. The ~ Ishmael Beah

He had watched her, after all, mourn her husband's death and it had been for her in part the discovery that grief could attach itself with permanence - something Ishmael had already discovered. It attached itself and then it burrowed inside and made a nest and stayed. It ate whatever was warm nearby, and then the coldness settled in permanently. You learned to live with it. ~ David Guterson

If the British prose style is Churchillian, America is the tobacco auctioneer, the barker; Runyon, Lardner, W.W., the traveling salesman who can sell the world the Brooklyn Bridge every day, can put anything over on you and convince you that tomatoes grow at the South Pole. ~ Ishmael Reed

We all knew that we could grieve only for a short while in order to continue staying alive. ~ Ishmael Beah

Given all of the anti-Muslim propaganda that's being disseminated by The American Nazi media, you have to be careful. It can stress you out. ~ 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

My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen. ~ Ishmael Beah

I wasn't part of any sixties movement. I'm skeptical of movements. I'm part of the times that I'm in. ~ Ishmael Reed

Siddhartha wants liberation, Dante wants Beatrice, Frodo wants to get to Mount Doom - we all want something. Quest is elemental to the human experience. All road narratives are to some extent built on quest. If you're a woman, though, this fundamental possibility of quest is denied. You can't go anywhere if you can't step out onto a road ...
... (T)here is no female counterpart in our culture to Ishmael or Huck Finn. There is no Dean Moriarty, Sal, or even a Fuckhead. It sounds like a doctoral crisis, but it's not. As a fifteen-year-old hitchhiker, my survival depended upon other people's ability to envision a possible future for me. Without a Melvillean or Kerouacian framework, or at least some kind of narrative to spell out a potential beyond death, none of my resourcefulness or curiosity was recognizable, and therefore I was unrecognizable. ~ Vanessa Veselka

It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooners, and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood; all this was thrilling. ~ Ishmael

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 was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. ~ Ishmael Beah

As God's child advances spiritually be shall discover that the Lord's time is as important as the Lord's will. Do not rashly beget an Ishmael lest he become the greatest enemy to Isaac. ~ Watchman Nee

Time is a pendulum. Not a river. More akin to what goes around comes around. ~ Ishmael Reed

A week ago," Ishmael said, "when we were talking about laws, you said that there's only one kind of law about how people should live--the kind that can be changed by a vote. What do you think now? Can the laws that govern competition in the community be changed by a vote?"

"No. But they're not absolutes, like the laws of aerodynamics. They can be broken."

"Can't the laws of aerodynamics be broken?"

"No. If your plane isn't built according to the law, it doesn't fly."

"But if you push it off a cliff, it stays in the air, doesn't it?"

"For a while."

"The same is true of a civilization that isn't built in accordance with the law of limited competition... Any species that, as a matter of policy, exempts itself from the law of limited competition will end by destroying the community..."

"Yes."

"Then what have we discovered here?"

"We've discovered a piece of certain knowledge about how people ought to live. Must live in fact."

"The law we've outlined here enables species to live--enables species to survive, including the human. It won't tell you whether mood-altering drugs should be legalized or not. It won't tell you whether premarital sex is good or bad. It won't tell you if capital punishment is right or wrong. It *will* tell you how you have to live if you want to avoid extinction, and that's the first and most fundamental knowledge anyone needs... You might say that t ~ Daniel Quinn

I was on a panel with light skinned Blacks and a famous gay science fiction writer, who were complaining about how Blacks are against gays and light skinned Blacks and how intolerant Blacks are of different groups. My position was that Blacks were among the most humanistic, tolerant groups in the country and that across the street from my house in Oakland was one inhabited by White gays. ~ Ishmael Reed

Circumstances will change and things will be fine, just hold on a little more ~ Ishmael Beah

My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed. ~ Ishmael Beah

I understand that through books one is able to journey. One is able to smell and taste and go into different worlds without actually leaving where you are, with your imagination.

Imagination is more powerful than anything. For me, anywhere the imagination is fed, is sustained, is strengthened, then you are preparing that human being to deal with anything they face in life. ~ Ishmael Beah

Have you ever seen people line up outside a Van Gogh exhibit? When they get inside there are so many they can't even see the paintings, they just pass by like sheep or like mourners passing the tomb of a fallen hero, a bier, with the same solemnity. And the extent of their knowledge concerning Van Gogh is that he "cut off his ear." Man, it's religion they make it into. ~ Ishmael Reed

Who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk. ~ Ishmael Beah

I have been trying to think clearly about everything and to use all this distance to advantage. And here is what I've discovered. I don't love you, Ishmael. ~ David Guterson

I feel like I'm an explorer, a frontiersman if you will, and I've been able to satisfy that desire in me through music. I've continued to meet people who challenge me and inspire me as friends. I don't even know how to even quantify it in words. I've been very fortunate. ~ Ishmael Butler

61 lynchings occurred in 1920 alone. In 1921, 62, some of the victims, soldiers returning from the Great War who after fighting and winning significant victories - just as they had fought in the Revolutionary and Civil wars and the wars again the Indians - thought that America would repay them for the generosity of putting their lives on the line, for aiding in salvaging their hides from the Kaiser who had been tagged "enemy" this time. Instead, a Protestant country ignorant even of Western mysteries executes soldiers after a manner of punishments dealt to witches in the "Middle Ages." Europe and the Catholic Church are horrified but not surprised at this "tough guy" across the waters whose horrendous murders in Salem led Europe to reform its "witch laws. ~ Ishmael Reed

If you go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Seoul or Buenos Aires or Islamabad or Johannesburg or Tampa or Istanbul or Kyoto, you'll find that the people differ wildly in the way they dress, in their marriage customs, in the holidays they observe, in their religious rituals, and so on, but they all expect the food to be under lock and key. It's all owned, and if you want some, you'll have to buy it. ~ Daniel Quinn

When I say Afro-American aesthetic, I'm not just talking about the United States, I'm talking about the Americas. People in the Latin countries read my books because they share the same international aesthetic that I'm into and have been into for a long time. And it's multicultural. ~ Ishmael Reed

Call me Ishmael. ~ Herman Melville

It must be particularly borne in mind, that Mahomet did not profess to set up a new religion ; but to restore that derived in the earliest times from God himself. " We follow," says the Koran, " the religion of Abraham the orthodox, who was no idolater. We believe in God and that which hath been sent down to us, and that which hath been sent down unto Abraham and Ishmael, and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and that which was delivered unto Moses and Jesus, and that which was delivered unto the prophets from the Lord : we make no distinction between any of them, and to God we are resigned. ~ Washington Irving

American cultural institutions seem so bent on preserving the values of "Western civilization," the mythical "Whitetown," that welearn about one another's cultures the same way we learn about sex: in the streets. ~ 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