Quote

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

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
Like
Definitely
Hurt
Feelings
Tell
Others
Children
Never
Poems
Would
Favorite

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

Image
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
Image
My main strength as a young writer was that I had no fear of making mistakes. I knew I would and I knew I could and would learn from them.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
My dream is a red dress Above my knees High-heel red sandals And me coming over the top The music booming Hi Howie I will say With a lovely smile I don't want to play the game I want to be it.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people.
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
Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
I appreciate and enjoy my age.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
We must invest in tomorrow. And pay our teachers for teaching as we pay our coaches for coaching.
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
Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Who I really am keeps surprising me.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
You're only as good as your last book.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.
Nikki Giovanni