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Who I am really keeps surprising me.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Really
Surprising
Keeps

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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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
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God knows it's a sign of a really sick mind to see grown people, adults with responsibilities, wearing class rings.
Nikki Giovanni
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I don't have a life-style, I have a life.
Nikki Giovanni
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Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.
Nikki Giovanni
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If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
Nikki Giovanni
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Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes.
Nikki Giovanni
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I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.
Nikki Giovanni
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[My] Books are like puppies and children: you love each one for different reasons. I don't actually have a favorite because, if I were honest, I'm always more excited about what is coming.
Nikki Giovanni
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If culture was a railroad, I can see the tracks running from the Spirituals to the Hip Hop Nation.
Nikki Giovanni
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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
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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.
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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We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
Nikki Giovanni
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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
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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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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
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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
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You're only as good as your last book.
Nikki Giovanni
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Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.
Nikki Giovanni
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School buildings should be opened and used twenty four hours a day.
Nikki Giovanni