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

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Spirit
Cannot
Human
Humans
Writing
Believe
Tamed
Trained
Write

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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The only way you can grow is to let yourself make mistakes and create contradictions. As we learn new things, some of our old attitudes will change.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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I used to go up to her house. She lived upstate [in New York] and I lived in Manhattan you're living in a lot of noise and my career was being built. For me to spend time with Nina [Simone] is to spend a lot of quiet time.
Nikki Giovanni
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I appreciate and enjoy my age.
Nikki Giovanni
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We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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Who I am really keeps surprising me.
Nikki Giovanni
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We must invest in tomorrow. And pay our teachers for teaching as we pay our coaches for coaching.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.
Nikki Giovanni
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If you were a pure bolt of fire-cutting the skies I'd touch you-risking my life-not because I'm brave or strong, but because I'm fascinated by what the outcome would be.
Nikki Giovanni
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I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people.
Nikki Giovanni
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I think that too many strangers were in her [Nina Simone's] life, and not enough people that she knew and loved.
Nikki Giovanni
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Who I really am keeps surprising me.
Nikki Giovanni
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We have a world to conquer...one person at a time...starting with ourselves.
Nikki Giovanni
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We need to make sure our children travel to see things. Not necessarily long distances but at least out of the neighborhood. On a train. A boat. An airplane.
Nikki Giovanni