Quote

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.

Nikki Giovanni

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Inspiring
Happen
Dies
Happens
Reality
Guarantee
Without
Guarantees
Things
Naked
People
Refuse

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

Image
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.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy
Nikki Giovanni
Image
I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
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.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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-
Nikki Giovanni
Image
There are things you stand up for because it’s right.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
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
Nikki Giovanni
Image
The catchword I use with my classes is: The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Death is a slave's freedom.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked... . We as black people, we as people, we as the human species have got to get used to the fact we're not going to be right most of the time, not even when our intentions are good. We've got to go naked and see what happens.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
There are some things we do simply because the doing is a success.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
We all have our muses. My grandmother and my mother are the people I write for. I'll never have to worry about who buys my work, or who likes it, and who doesn't. The people who I want to be proud of me already are.
Nikki Giovanni