Nikki Giovanni Quotes

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.

There are things you stand up for because it’s right.

Writers ... I think ... live on that fine line between insanity and genius.

The future is in good hands.

I think we're always in love. It's that simple. And it's important to remember that love doesn't have anything to do with sex. It's two different things. Being in love is the happy part. I was teasing my gentleman, "We know that you're in love when you cook for us." It's true. When men cook for you, they're in love.

It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.

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.

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.

A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it.

I think speeches and fruit should always be fresh.

Once you know who you are, you don't have to worry anymore.

We love because it's the only true adventure.

Floating to shore...riding a low moon...on a slow cloud.

Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy

I don't have a life-style, I have a life.

I am so hip even my errors are correct

You do what you can with what you have. You have to work the edges whatever they are. The main thing is keeping your integrity.

I hope that, reading 'Rosa,' people will remember their own family and friends and talk about what they did and did not do.

Baseball is already the world's most tranquil sport. It is probably the only active sport where you are not seriously required to be alive to play.

I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.

We have a world to conquer...one person at a time...starting with ourselves.

We just didn't put any pressure on each other, and I think that everybody needs somebody, and I didn't do it to try to do it; it's what we [with Nina Simone] were to each other.

School buildings should be opened and used twenty four hours a day.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, humans resist change. Change will occur; vacuums will be filled.

Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.

Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.

War is not a jobs program.

Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.

You have to use what you have in order to get what you need and the people can not be rich unless somebody is rich. The Hip-Hop generation has carried more people with it than any other enterprise Black Americans have had.

The more you love someone the more he wants from you and the less you have to give since you've already given him your love.

The job of the architect becomes more difficult in this secular age. Where once he had a god to extol, he now has humans like himself; where once he had "he," he now has "she" and "they.

Storytelling is how history is passed. It's what our ancestors did, it's what everybody's done. It has to come back into a story because otherwise, it's stuck in this book and it's boring and it's academic and I'm not against intelligence and I'm not against education, I don't want to be misunderstood, but we have tell the stories to our young people a little bit early and history gives us a lot of things.

Don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share but the words we never have to speak.

Poems don't have to rhyme... Poems are about beauty and emotion; in other words poems are about feelings.

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.

Rage is to writers what water is to fish.

I grow old though pleased with my memories The tasks I can no longer complete Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past I offer no apology only this plea: When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt That I might keep some child warm And some old person with no one else to talk to Will hear my whispers And cuddle near

The only way you can grow is to let yourself make mistakes and create contradictions. As we learn new things, some of our old attitudes will change.

We believe 'Peter Rabbit' because Beatrix Potter believes it. You have to.

We must invest in tomorrow. And pay our teachers for teaching as we pay our coaches for coaching.

Style has a profound meaning to Black Americans. If we can’t drive, we will invent walks and the world will envy the dexterity of our feet. If we can’t have ham, we will boil chitterlings; if we are given rotten peaches, we will make cobblers; if given scraps, we will make quilts; take away our drums, and we will clap our hands. We prove the human spirit will prevail. We will take what we have to make what we need. We need confidence in our knowledge of who we are.

[To become a poet] The most important thing is to pay attention. The next would probably be to read; it's so important to pay attention. It keeps you from being bored, and I might add it keeps you from being boorish.

Show me someone not full of herself and I'll show you a hungry person.

You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts.

I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.

You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.