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

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Class
Use
Overcomes
Always
Skepticism
Classes
Overcoming
Authority
Reader
Writer

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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Who I am really keeps surprising me.
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Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes.
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Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.
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We love because it's the only true adventure.
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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.
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I don't have a life-style, I have a life.
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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.
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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.
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I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.
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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.
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Who I really am keeps surprising me.
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Black love is black wealth
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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.
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And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroes
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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.
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I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people. It's strange that the only time the major press talks about them is when someone gets killed or does drugs or something yet these are the same press people who made heroes out of the Mafia and other crooks, you know.
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Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.
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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.
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Nina Simone's music is incredibly honest. That's like saying, Why does Jesus' word still stay around? It's incredibly honest and it's good.
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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.
Nikki Giovanni