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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

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Trying
Homo
Cautious
Younger
Communicate
Communication
Learned
Though
Sapiens
Thought
Particulars

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.
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We love because it's the only true adventure.
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Baseball is already the world's most tranquil sport. It is probably the only active sport where you are not seriously required to be alive to play.
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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.
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I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.
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If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
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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.
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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 are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.
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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Rage is to writers what water is to fish.
Nikki Giovanni
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I wish that she had had a black loon because I don't think that Nina [Simone] did. I have always had - I've been very fortunate - a group of little old ladies that I love and who love me, and who turned and to whom I turn at different times.
Nikki Giovanni
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Death is a slave's freedom.
Nikki Giovanni
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White people really deal more with God and black people with Jesus.
Nikki Giovanni
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Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us.
Nikki Giovanni
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Sacred cows make very poor gladiators.
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Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.
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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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
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I move on feeling and have learned to distrust those who don't.
Nikki Giovanni