Nikki Grimes Quotes

For I am coconut / and the heart of me / is sweeter / than you know.

Do something about it, or shut up.

The lack of goodness in the young gun's heart was oxygen to the fire, and so he burned for a good long while before I woke. The dream stoked my faith in the judgment and justice that will come someday or this afternoon soon. I turn up the collar of my white robe, relieved to know that God's got me covered 'cause I'm good, but not that good.

Do friends make better mirrors?

If a dream is in your heart, you never lose it.

Son, don't mind what's missing. Count allthat's free: friendship, laughter, all thelove your heart can carry, and time -- count time.

I do like Manny,
crank up the inside volume,
listen to my dreams
as I walk through the school halls,
I choose what words to let in.

I spent many hours ensconced in the local library, reading - nay, devouring - book after book after book. Books were my soul's delight.

I'm an artist ... The difference is that I don't tell anybody. I refuse to give them new reasons to laugh at me.

The fact is that you are more comfortable with myth than man.

Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away.

Is there more to me?
Sure. Kids yell 'albino boy.'
I don't turn around.
Choose the name you answer to.
No one can do that but you.

So don't tell me that I can't fit in. My heart beats like a talking drum.

Choose whatever box you like, Mike. Just don't put me in one, son. Believe me, I won't fit.

Only the wind shatters the silence. I have been here before choking in solitude.

The crashing sound of years lost shattered in her ears, and new fears emerged from the looking glass. Sometimes I wonder if she'll ever sing again.

The foster home they were leaving was no place to be. The mother, Mrs. Boone, slapped Paris around every time her real daughter did something that called for punishment....After each beating, the daughter, Lisa, would swear she had no clue how her mama got the mistaken notion that Paris was the one who'd smashed a favorite vase, or stained the kitchen tablecloth, or whatever. My name is Paris, not Stupid, Paris would say to herself.

Originally I had planned to write just a couple of children's books and then, return the focus on adult literature. A funny thing happened along the way - I kept having new ideas, and then I looked up one day, and 30 years had passed!

There's something about a blank page that makes me tingle.

The perfect size is happy" -Garvey

It seemed uncanny that words, spread across a page just so, had the power to transport me to another time or place. But they could.

Love is not me being who you want. Your definition is a whirlpool trying to suck me in and I'm drowning. Don't you see?...It's time...Time you stop telling me who to be, how to live. This is my portrait. You chose your canvas. Let me choose mine.

I'd pretend their words were water and let them roll off my back. Now, I'm nobody's duck, and their words stung a whole lot more than water.

MY BLACK ME

My father fed me
Invisible Man,
Native Son,
No Longer at Ease,
Black Man's Burden,
and the more I read,
the madder I got,
and I already
had reason
to scream,
but my father
kept me dreaming
of what words
I might bring
to the world.

I woke up this morning exhausted from hiding the me of me. So I stand here confiding there's more to Devon than jump shot and rim. I'm more than tall and lengthy of limb. I dare you to peep behind these eyes, discover the poet in tough-guy disguise. Don't call me Jump Shot. My name is surprise.

Forget who I really am, who I really want to be.

Round still, but that's fine.
Feeling good outside and in.
Maybe I'm not thin,
but skinny isn't perfect.
The perfect size is happy.

How good is different? I search stories for someone who resembles me. If it weren't for books and Joe, "different" would just be lonely.

Jealousy is a waste of energy...focus on what I have, not what I don't.