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We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Better
Think
Thinking

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts.
Nikki Giovanni
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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
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Who I really am keeps surprising me.
Nikki Giovanni
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The job of the architect becomes more difficult in this secular age. Where once he had a god to extol, he now has humans like himself where once he had he, he now has she and they.
Nikki Giovanni
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I appreciate and enjoy my age.
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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We need to make sure our children travel to see things. Not necessarily long distances but at least out of the neighborhood. On a train. A boat. An airplane.
Nikki Giovanni
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We just didn't put any pressure on each other, and I think that everybody needs somebody, and I didn't do it to try to do it it's what we [with Nina Simone] were to each other.
Nikki Giovanni
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If I could come back as anything - I'd be a bird, first, but definitely the command key is my second choice.
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 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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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.
Nikki Giovanni
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Most of my books are a two-year project. I tend to follow my heart and my mind and research materials where they take me.
Nikki Giovanni
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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
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I am ever fascinated by the human experience and by, actually, human beings.
Nikki Giovanni
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Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy
Nikki Giovanni
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Facts are only tools to gain control over yourself and other 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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A lot is yet to be enjoyed. I'd like to stomp grapes for wine. Go to Antarctica. Have dinner with Venus Williams who is the greatest tennis player ever.
Nikki Giovanni
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We are less lonely when we connect. Art is connection.
Nikki Giovanni