Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni, Jr. Quotes
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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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I just think she was a wonderful woman. What I think of when I think of Nina [Simone] is someone that I could relate to, who didn't want anything from me, that could relate to me because I didn't want anything from her. It was nice.
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Everyone understands that love comes in many different packages and is used in many different ways. You cannot love beyond your years, nor can you fail to love beneath them... In other words, I think you get the love you need when you open your heart.
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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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I appreciate my my sleep In sleep my conversation is witty My home is dusted My office work is up to date The dog is even well behaved And food is on the table on time But then when I'm asleep I don't have you to clutter and confuse My hungry heart
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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.
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We [Black people] have always used our creativity to battle and we're not the only ones. Black Americans are certainly leaders in that simply because we were denied education and dealt with enforced illiteracy. But people seem to always forget that literacy is not the only way of learning things or conveying knowledge.
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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
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I have not tried to tell the people anything. I have shared my views with the people but I have not tried to lead or correct them, assuming they need correction.
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and sometimes I sit down at my typewriter and I think not of someone cause there isn't anyone to think about and i wonder is it worth it
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We have a world to conquer...one person at a time...starting with ourselves.
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Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.
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No one needs to teach you to be mean; we need to be taught to be kind.
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There are things you stand up for because it’s right.
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Show me someone not full of herself and I'll show you a hungry person.
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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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If I could come back as anything - I'd be a bird, first, but definitely the command key is my second choice.
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Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.
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Black Americans should be given credit for finding probably the perfect weapon; the weapon of the song. And that song continues. Most holocausts don't, so they have this bitterness left over. The phenomenon of the world, as far as Black Americans are considered, is that we are not a bitter people.
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Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.
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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.
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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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We black women are the single group in the West intact. And anybody can see we're pretty shaky. We are, however (all praises), the only group that derives its identity from itself.
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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.