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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.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Running
Truthful
Makes
Lead
Different
Poet
Would
Office
People
Writer
Understand
Artist
Sense
Heed

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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Black Americans should be given credit for finding probably the perfect weapon the weapon of the song. And that song continues. Most holocausts don't, so they have this bitterness left over. The phenomenon of the world, as far as Black Americans are considered, is that we are not a bitter people.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.
Nikki Giovanni
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[To write poems] I think it's important to do research, and research mostly is going to come from books, so all of your reading is potentially helpful to your poetry.
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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Favorite poems are like favorite children. We definitely have them but we never tell as the others would have their feelings hurt.
Nikki Giovanni
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There are some things we do simply because the doing is a success.
Nikki Giovanni
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My work is a part of me and I know it. I have no reason to try to pick one part of me out from the rest. I only see my work, or rather I should say I see my work only telling my part of the human experience.
Nikki Giovanni
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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.
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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There are things you stand up for because it’s right.
Nikki Giovanni
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We must invest in tomorrow. And pay our teachers for teaching as we pay our coaches for coaching.
Nikki Giovanni
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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
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The only advice [for new writers and poets] I can offer is to be yourself: not the self someone else wants you to be, but the self you are. Enjoy yourself and your life. But most of all travel and eat. That's how we learn.
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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You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.
Nikki Giovanni
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Young people coming up who are having difficulty with their so-called celebrity need to get back into their lives. It's your life and you can't let the fact that you do something pretty good take away the joy of it.
Nikki Giovanni
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If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.
Nikki Giovanni
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Who I am really keeps surprising me.
Nikki Giovanni
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The nature of tragedy and accident is that we cannot predict.
Nikki Giovanni