Nikki Giovanni Quotes
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I think one of the nicest things that we created as a generation was just the fact that we could say, 'Hey, I don't like white people.'
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Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.
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If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.
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Schools should serve breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. No sugared drinks, no fast type food.
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Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.
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School buildings should be opened and used twenty four hours a day.
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The ability to take pride in your own work is one of the hallmarks of sanity.
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There is no such thing as writer's block. There is only not enough information. If you can't write, learn something.
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Just as nature abhors a vacuum, humans resist change. Change will occur; vacuums will be filled.
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If i can't have what i want . . . then my job is to want what i've got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to want
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I’m a big fan of history—applying the lessons as well as the joys and sadness. If we pay attention, we would see how we affect each other. In terms of time, we are not that far from one another. If we were to look back a century, it would seem like a long time; but, if we look at it by decades then it’s only 10 years, and by generations it’s only five.
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I am honest; I try to be truthful. I like people and wish us well. We are not always deserving of our own best wishes.
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You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.
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We obviously need the truth. We're living in a country of lies.
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One stands, in fact, in awe of the Constitution of the United States, though it is an idea and not quite a reality.
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Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.
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Poetry is music though, unfortunately, not all music is poetry. Because music has other carriers to take its message - beats, lyrics, singers, bass players - anyone in music can rise to make a major statement but in poetry there are only words to do the work. And they do sometimes have to sweat.
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I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.
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We believe 'Peter Rabbit' because Beatrix Potter believes it. You have to.
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I am totally fascinated by people and our history as I understand and continue to explore it. People have so much to give and so far to go and yet we have given and gone a great distance. It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.
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VISIBILITY - You've got to find a way to make people know you're there
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I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )
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Rage is to writers what water is to fish.
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I’ve not learned the acceptable way of saying you fascinate me...I’ve not even learned how to say I like you without frightening people away-
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Mistakes are a fact of life. If you are willing to be wrong then you have earned the right to be right.
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Poetry is the most informative of all of the arts because everything comes down to poetry. No matter what it is we are describing, ultimately we use either a metaphor; or we say "that's poetry in motion." You drink a glass of wine and say, "that's poetry in a bottle." Everything is poetry, so I think we come down to emotional information. And that's what poetry conveys.
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Don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share but the words we never have to speak.
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Facts are only tools to gain control over yourself and other people.
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Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.
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I am ever fascinated by the human experience and by, actually, human beings.
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