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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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Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Tell
Take
Nina
People
Preach
Burden
Saws
Taking
Started
Knew

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

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There are some things we do simply because the doing is a success.
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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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Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.
Nikki Giovanni
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Floating to shore...riding a low moon...on a slow cloud.
Nikki Giovanni
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I think speeches and fruit should always be fresh.
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Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.
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You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts.
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I don't have a life-style, I have a life.
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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
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I am proud of the hip hop generation. They are good business people and, actually, good people. It's strange that the only time the major press talks about them is when someone gets killed or does drugs or something yet these are the same press people who made heroes out of the Mafia and other crooks, you know.
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Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.
Nikki Giovanni
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And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroes
Nikki Giovanni
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You're only as good as your last book.
Nikki Giovanni
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My main strength as a young writer was that I had no fear of making mistakes. I knew I would and I knew I could and would learn from them.
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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Don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share but the words we never have to speak.
Nikki Giovanni
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I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.
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 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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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