Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Nikki Giovanni
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: June 7
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Knoxville
Tennessee
Yolande Cornelia Giovanni
Jr
Learn
Making
Fear
Main
Young
Mistakes
Would
Strength
Writer
Mistake
Knew

More quotes by Nikki Giovanni

Image
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
Image
If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I was responding to one thing for the woman I knew, and there's another thing for what did she give, right. She [Nina Simone] was a great teacher.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
You're only as good as your last book.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
School should be eleven months of the year.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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
Image
I used to go up to her house. She lived upstate [in New York] and I lived in Manhattan you're living in a lot of noise and my career was being built. For me to spend time with Nina [Simone] is to spend a lot of quiet time.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
I move on feeling and have learned to distrust those who don't.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
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.
Nikki Giovanni
Image
The nature of tragedy and accident is that we cannot predict.
Nikki Giovanni