Quote

There are things you stand up for because it’s right.

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
Stand
Right
Things

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

Image
I knew Stokely [Carmichael] and them, but when you got to that, you saw that Nina Simone started to take up their burden. She started to preach for them. She was taking on the burden of I want to tell the people.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Everyone understands that love comes in many different packages and is used in many different ways. You cannot love beyond your years, nor can you fail to love beneath them... In other words, I think you get the love you need when you open your heart.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
We obviously need the truth. We're living in a country of lies.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.
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
Image
I always loved English because whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are. English is much more a story of who we really are.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
If I could come back as anything - I'd be a bird, first, but definitely the command key is my second choice.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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.
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
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
It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.
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
Image
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
Image
Rage is to writers what water is to fish.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Daddy says the world is a drum tight and hard and I told him I'm gonna beat out my own rhythm.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
When younger, I thought one of the particulars of being Homo sapiens was to communicate. I have not learned not to, though I am cautious when I try.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.
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