Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr. Quotes
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I was responding to one thing for the woman I knew, and there's another thing for what did she give, right. She [Nina Simone] was a great teacher.
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Poetry is like air. It's one of the necessary things. Everyone benefits from poetry. And as you know, poetry is international. There are only two things that are truly international, poetry and wine.
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I knew Stokely [Carmichael] and them, but when you got to that, you saw that Nina Simone started to take up their burden. She started to preach for them. She was taking on the burden of "I want to tell the people."
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I would put books on par with chocolate, because a good book is delicious.
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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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Hip-hop is a cultural expression - it's embracing.
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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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When younger, I thought one of the particulars of being "Homo sapiens" was to communicate. I have not learned not to, though I am cautious when I try.
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You're only as good as your last book.
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A lot is yet to be enjoyed. I'd like to stomp grapes for wine. Go to Antarctica. Have dinner with Venus Williams who is the greatest tennis player ever.
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I think it's the strength of her music, using art to make a statement. I think it really is. It was not a cheap gift. The gift was an expensive gift for Nina [Simone]. Diamonds are expensive. Her music was expensive. She paid for it, but I think it's her greatest gift.
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But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.
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I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.
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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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Young people coming up who are having difficulty with their so-called celebrity need to get back into their lives. It's your life and you can't let the fact that you do something pretty good take away the joy of it.
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It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.
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A white face goes with a white mind. Occasionally a black face goes with a white mind. Very seldom a white face will have a black mind.
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There're two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave.
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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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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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Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes.
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I like what they're doing. I think they're doing a good job, and I know that a lot of people are upset by them. These are great young men and women, and they're bold, and they are saying to America, "Something's going to change." I'm very proud of them.
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[My] Books are like puppies and children: you love each one for different reasons. I don't actually have a favorite because, if I were honest, I'm always more excited about what is coming.
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We eat up artists like there's going to be a famine at the end.