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I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Storyteller
Story
Tell
Stories

More quotes by 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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We believe 'Peter Rabbit' because Beatrix Potter believes it. You have to.
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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Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.
Nikki Giovanni
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We are less lonely when we connect. Art is connection.
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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Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.
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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Black love is black wealth
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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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
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I appreciate and enjoy my age.
Nikki Giovanni
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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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The catchword I use with my classes is: The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.
Nikki Giovanni
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It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.
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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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 write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.
Nikki Giovanni
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If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
Nikki Giovanni