Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr. (Nikki Giovanni) Quotes
If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.
Quotes to Explore
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I'm not a pretty person. I don't like pretty, so I don't feel badly. Most of the world is not with me, but I don't care.
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I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms.
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In Gnosticism, the physical world did not ultimately matter - which meant physical suffering did not matter either. Seeking 'enlightenment' meant cultivating an attitude of detachment, even indifference.
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Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
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Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.
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I would like to spend Christmas in different countries all over the world. I love seeing how different cultures celebrate the holidays in their own unique ways.
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I actually love doing period pieces, purely because it takes you into a different world, mentally. The clothes you have to wear are so far from our everyday clothes that it immediately helps with the character and putting you in that mind frame.
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I would like to do something to help people and help the world.
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There are more books in the world than hours in which to read them. We are thus deeply influenced by books we haven't read, that we haven't had the time to read.
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The world is divided into two classes, those who believe the incredible, and those who do the improbable.
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Canada was my whole world and my whole reality, and now I meet people who've never been there, and it's like, 'You've never been to my whole world?'
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The acquisition of knowledge - knowledge of both the world and of their own religion - will inoculate young people against extremist ideologies.
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It's a crazy world, so sports and athletics and music can be a form of escapism.
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It's amazing to think how powerful of a force optimism and hope can be. It's the thing that saves me. I believed that I lived in the greatest country in the world. I still believe that, and consequently, I believed that I had a chance, even though things around me were absolutely crazy and difficult.
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There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
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However, I don't feel the world is looking over my shoulder when I am working - I never think about this at all. What I think about is trying to make my work pure, and if it is pure then it can be accessible. It is quite straight forward really.
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Any real virtual reality enthusiast can look back at VR science fiction. It's not about playing games... 'The Matrix,' 'Snow Crash,' all this fiction was not about sitting in a room playing video games. It's about being in a parallel digital world that exists alongside our own, communicating with other people, playing with other people.
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When I returned to the United States after three years of World War II service, my total assets consisted of one wife, one small daughter, $276 in the bank, and an idea. The idea was for an export business to supply items badly needed everywhere in Europe.
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Orwell's '1984' convinced me, rightly or wrongly, that Marxism was only a quantum leap away from tyranny. By contrast, Huxley's 'Brave New World' suggested that the totalitarian systems of the future might be subservient and ingratiating.
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L.A. is definitely a Marmite sort of place for me. I used to hate it, but now I love it. I think it really helps if you know the places and the restaurants and the nice bars to go to and if you have friends there. I've got some friends over there now, and they're not all actors, which is quite refreshing, and now I have a great time there.
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You become the monster you fear the worst, so the monster won't overtake you.
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Eudora Welty's 'A Curtain of Green' had an enormous effect on me. But my early attempts to graft stories from the Deep South onto North of England provincialism were not successful. All were rejected.
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Something even minor I do is going to be reported because of things that have happened in the past. You have to be aware of that.
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If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.
