Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr. (Nikki Giovanni) Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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It took me a while and a lot of hard times to figure out my purpose, I am so happy with my life. I just want to help make other people happy, too.
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I didn't audition for 'SNL.' I sent in a tape to 'SNL' the year before I started writing there, but I got the job there through doing stand-up on Fallon.
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Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality. It's part of the sizzle.
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I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.
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Chicken and horse meat are the best foods for weightlifters, and good food is important.
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I am writing a book called 'The History of Australia in Hundred Objects.' It's of things we have invented in Australia. And you know, some of them are amazing. We invented the clapper boards used in films. We invented those cranes - those big long cranes used on construction sites.
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The idea of going on tour for the rest of my life with old works is not that exciting. As an artist I definitely think the work in future is going to be better than the work in the past, otherwise why do it?
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When I was first elected I got 50% of the vote in '77 in the general election. In '81 I got 75%. In '85, I got 78%. No mayor has ever gotten that high a vote. So it was not an issue. Except for people who were very hostile to me. They thought they would injure me.
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Film is my hobby, so I will work well through the night to develop films, whatever film I'm doing or dream projects I have.
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I went to the studio of Fischli Weiss, and it was magical. I thought: 'This is what I want to do with my life; I want to work with artists and be useful to them.' I was magnetically attracted.
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Laws are to be enforced justly but firmly, with an iron hand. This is the case anywhere, even in a family.
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By adversity are wrought the greatest works of admiration, and all the fair examples of renown, out of distress and misery are grown.
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Every vote should carry a serial number, so that responsibility for harmful or careless use of the vote can be traced. Concealed voting should be outlawed.
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There are many women with children under five who want to work and who lack affordable, high-quality child care.
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There are those who seem to feel they have no choice about being jerks in the present because they had a crappy childhood. Well, that's the definition of childhood; nobody gets out alive. You either get stronger from what you experience, or you turn it into a crutch, an excuse, a dodge.
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Just because we eat together does not mean we eat right: Domino's alone delivers a million pizzas on an average day.
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I think chicken and horse meat are ideal food because it's very easy to digest.
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It's true that I have very little idea what I shall be writing next, but at the same time I have a powerful premonition of everything that lies ahead of me, even ten years ahead.
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It takes thousands of them to create an archive of human wisdom; only one to set a torch to it. Wouldn’t you have to say, then, that the work of the librarians is more typical of mortal behavior than the work of the arsonist?
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In quiet places, reason abounds.
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Periods of inactivity, I don't know such things. I'm consistently writing. My life is busy. It always is. There are hardly any moments for self-indulgent laziness.
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In a park, you are not working with studio materials or a flat piece of paper. You have grass and the people and the city and the daylight.
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Well, I hate it when authors come into a school and they say to kids, 'Write from your heart, only write what you know, and write from your heart.' I hate that because it's useless. I've written over 300 books - not one was written from my heart. Not one. They were all written for an audience, they were all written to entertain a certain audience.
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School should be eleven months of the year.
