Nikki Giovanni Quotes

Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.

You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play.

Poets can tell the truth as they see it. It's the author's story, the author's voice.

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

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

i think any poem worth its salt, if poems can indeed be salty, should allow the reader to think. this poem is of course a chronological poem tracing the development of humans through the movement of black women. i have no feelings that the poem is exclusive of any one but i wanted to write a sassy hands-on-the-hips poem from the understanding that i am a woman and indeed was once a girl. i think it works because the more you know about anthropology and history the more you can follow what i am saying; on the other hand you can be a little child with no previous experiences and catch the joy of the poem. it goes from the first human bones discovered all the way to the space age. what has been included is as important to me as what has been excluded. what i strove to do was show progress, movement, humor and a bit of pride.

this is the most i've ever commented on any poem of mine since i tend to agree with t.s. eliot when he said a poet was the last person to know what the poem was/is about.

The ability to take pride in your own work is one of the hallmarks of sanity.

Deal with yourself as a individual, worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.

Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.

If you know what you're talking about, or if you feel that you do, the reader will believe you.

There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.

History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened.

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.

I do not understand why any poet or writer would run for office; that's a different sense of who you are. I'm just a poet. I am as truthful as I can be. That makes me an artist. I heed the people; I do not lead the people.

Because Nina's Simone music is incredibly honest. That's like saying, "Why does Jesus' word still stay around?" It's incredibly honest and it's good.

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

The poet Melvin B. Tolson once said, 'A civilization is judged only in its decline.' That made sense to me. I would imagine the same is true for poets and tennis players.

The catchword I use with my classes is: The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.

Sometimes
when i wake up
in the morning
and see all the faces
i just can't
breathe
from Sometimes

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.

No one needs to teach you to be mean; we need to be taught to be kind.

I think that, in reality, there is something wrong with human beings, and unless we are willing to face the fact that something is really wrong with human beings, unless we are willing to face the fact that somewhere in our imaginations we are evil, vicious people, it is not going to work.

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.

Maybe what will really work is we all need to have a fear tree in our backyard or a small fear plant growing on our apartment windowsill. When we are feeling uneasy we pluck a few leaves and find the right place to put them. Champagne would be the number one choice but spaghetti works, too. Have a little fear at least once a week and you will build up your resistance. Like a vaccination. Then, when wars and hatreds come along you'll be able to recognize that's just another expression of Fear. No thanks, I've had my quota.

Educational progress is a national concern; education is a private one.

If loneliness were a grape
the wine would be vintage
If it were a wood
the furniture would be mahogany
But since it is life it is
Cotton Candy
on a rainy day
The sweet soft essence
of possibility
Never quite maturing
from Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

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

I think speeches and fruit should always be fresh.

I think that too many strangers were in Nina Simone life, and not enough people that she knew and loved.

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 totally fascinated by people and our history as I understand and continue to explore it. People have so much to give and so far to go and yet we have given and gone a great distance. It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.

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.

I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, "If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on." I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.

DONT EVER BE AFRAID TO COME TO ME N CRY ... DONT EVER HESITATE TO LOOK ME N THE EYE DONT EVER BE AFRAID TO TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL. REMEMBAER YOUR MY GIRL N WE GOTTA KEEP IT REAL.

It is difficult to be an artist, because what you can see needs to be done and what you can achieve are generally two very opposite things. The two are like yin and yang, north and south, positive and negative. What you see is just totally opposite of what the reality can be, and that's unfortunate. But there are things we can do. Writers can either repave--we fill in some of the cracks in the road that are already there--or we start to knock down some of the weeds to make a clearing in the wilderness.

If I can't do what I want to do, then my job is to not do what I want to do. It's not the same thing, but it's the best thing I can do.

Daddy says the world is a drum tight and hard and i told him i'm gonna beat out my own rhythm

Who I really am keeps surprising me.

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

We are all more than our experiences
And less than our dreams
~ from "I Am Glass

We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.

If you're a writer, the answer to everything is yes.

Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.

If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.

A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked, don't want to go without guarantee. But that's what's got to happen. You go naked until you die

Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.

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.

Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.

I'm a big fan of history - applying the lessons as well as the joys and sadness. If we pay attention, we would see how we affect each other. In terms of time, we are not that far from one another. If we were to look back a century, it would seem like a long time; but, if we look at it by decades then it's only 10 years, and by generations it's only five.

I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.

Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.

We obviously need the truth. We're living in a country of lies.

She knows who she is, because she knows who she isn't.

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

I'm told by my young friends that experience is much more important than books. Of course Ben Franklin had something to say about experience and fools, but even Franklin thought that a fool would learn by his experience. That has proven false in the modern world. Some people are simply unwilling to learn under any circumstances, which maybe, even then, wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so damned proud of it.

Today I am 65 years old. I still look good. I appreciate and enjoy my age. 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. You still bring to bear all your prior experience, but you are riding on another level. It's completely liberating.

I'm an old storyteller. [When] I tell the story, it's about the story.

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.

Life is a process where people mix and match, fall apart and come back together.

Ego Tripping

I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman

I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me

For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on

My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach e

Life is a marvelous, transitory adventure.

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

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.

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.

I appreciate and enjoy my age.

The only advice [for new writers and poets] I can offer is to be yourself: not the self someone else wants you to be, but the self you are. Enjoy yourself and your life. But most of all travel and eat. That's how we learn.

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.

We eat up artists like there's going to be a famine at the end.

In order to have a happy ending, in order to be triumphant, in order to be heroic, you have to tell your own story. The women's movement knows that; black people know that; brown people know that; yellow people know that. You have to be able to tell your own story in order to show that you are worthy--that you belong.

If i can't have what i want ... then my job is to want what i've got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to want

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.

And everybody was happy that uncle lee was able to get that scholarship even though you wondered when you could do quadratic equations in your head why you had a basketball scholarship but you always knew that you had to take what they were giving since that was all you were going to get but you never fooled yourself about either the taking or the giving or the needing or the having you just sort of said to yourself I'll have to see what is being offered

FOR SONIA SANCHEZ

It is called education because it is learned. You do not have to have had an experience in order to sympathize or empathize with the subject. That is why books are written: so that we do not have to do the same things. We learn from experience, true; but we also learn from empathy." A Theory of Patience

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

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.

Though I worship nothing (save myself)
You were my savior - so be it
And it was
Perhaps not never more or ever after
But after all - once you were mine

In the name of peace
They waged the wars
ain't they got no shame

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

If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.

I hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to live

The poet can only write the poems; it takes the reader to complete the meaning.

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.

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

Writing is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking. All conversations with older people contain repetition. Some of the ideas mean a lot to me, just interesting, so I both embrace and attack the ideas because I found them, well, delightful.

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

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

Favorite poems are like favorite children. We definitely have them but we never tell as the others would have their feelings hurt.

VISIBILITY - You've got to find a way to make people know you're there

Nothing is easy to the unwilling.

The problem with love is not what we feel but what we wish we felt when we began to feel we should feel something.

Choices

If i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do

It's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do

If i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want

Since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral

When i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal

I know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry

Rage is to writers what water is to fish.

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.

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.

White people really deal more with God and black people with Jesus.

I always thought that would be really neat if black people ever got control of the United States we would, of course, tear down some of the statues because we just don't like them...like all of Richmond would probably not have a statue standing.

If you are sitting there waiting for someone to tell you how wonderful you are, you'll never get anything done. Women need to get over being women. I'm tired of that socialization of women; that we are always supposed to be sitting around pleasing somebody.

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.

I'm into my Black Thing
And it's filling all
My empty spots