Nikki Giovanni
We obviously need the truth. We're living in a country of lies.Collection: Country
We [Black people] have always used our creativity to battle and we're not the only ones. Black Americans are certainly leaders in that simply because we were denied education and dealt with enforced illiteracy. But people seem to always forget that literacy is not the only way of learning things or conveying knowledge.Collection: Creativity
I just think she was a wonderful woman. What I think of when I think of Nina [Simone] is someone that I could relate to, who didn't want anything from me, that could relate to me because I didn't want anything from her. It was nice.Collection: Nice
The ability to take pride in your own work is one of the hallmarks of sanity.Collection: Self Confidence
Who I am really keeps surprising me.Collection: Who I Am
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, humans resist change. Change will occur; vacuums will be filled.Collection: Change
You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.Collection: Writing
I think speeches and fruit should always be fresh.Collection: Thinking
The nature of tragedy and accident is that we cannot predict.Collection: Tragedy
If culture was a railroad, I can see the tracks running from the Spirituals to the Hip Hop Nation.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Running
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.Collection: Mother
Educational progress is a national concern; education is a private one.Collection: Education
I like what they're doing. I think they're doing a good job, and I know that a lot of people are upset by them. These are great young men and women, and they're bold, and they are saying to America, "Something's going to change." I'm very proud of them.Collection: Jobs
Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.Collection: Education
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.Collection: Song
I hope that, reading 'Rosa,' people will remember their own family and friends and talk about what they did and did not do.Collection: Reading
[To become a poet] The most important thing is to pay attention. The next would probably be to read; it's so important to pay attention. It keeps you from being bored, and I might add it keeps you from being boorish.Collection: Bored
And like an unfaithful mate, once a car has let you down you never sort of trust it again.Collection: Car
Poetry is like air. It's one of the necessary things. Everyone benefits from poetry. And as you know, poetry is international. There are only two things that are truly international, poetry and wine.Collection: Wine
Poetry is music though, unfortunately, not all music is poetry. Because music has other carriers to take its message - beats, lyrics, singers, bass players - anyone in music can rise to make a major statement but in poetry there are only words to do the work. And they do sometimes have to sweat.Collection: Player
In law school they teach you that everything is a contract; well, in poetry everything is a narrative.Collection: School
I try to impress upon my students the importance of looking, listening... paying attention, in other words. You must pay attention.Collection: Listening
Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.Collection: Life
Death is a slave's freedom.Collection: Slavery
Ever been kidnapped by a poet if i were a poet i'd kidnap you put you in my phrases and meter.Collection: Poetry
Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.Collection: Needs
I am a big fan of the electronic book. I hate to see the old bookstores close, but they have to reinvent themselves. I believe the First Edition bookstore will be the next thing. People will read electronically, then decide they want to own that book. The author will then be invited to the old bookstores to sign. I think books will always be with us, but they will fill a different need.Collection: Hate
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.Collection: Mistake
We are all either wheels or connectors. Whichever we are we must find truth and balance, which is a bicycle. Trust and balance are also essential to true love.Collection: Balance
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."Collection: People
I think that too many strangers were in her [Nina Simone's] life, and not enough people that she knew and loved.Collection: Thinking
I think it's the strength of her music, using art to make a statement. I think it really is. It was not a cheap gift. The gift was an expensive gift for Nina [Simone]. Diamonds are expensive. Her music was expensive. She paid for it, but I think it's her greatest gift.Collection: Art
Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.Collection: Struggle
One stands, in fact, in awe of the Constitution of the United States, though it is an idea and not quite a reality.Collection: Reality
Facts are only tools to gain control over yourself and other people.Collection: People
The poet Melvin B. Tolson once said "A civilization is judged only in its decline." That made sense to me. I would imagine the same is true for poets and tennis players.Collection: Player
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.Collection: New York
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.Collection: Hero
I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.Collection: Stories
A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked... . We as black people, we as people, we as the human species have got to get used to the fact we're not going to be right most of the time, not even when our intentions are good. We've got to go naked and see what happens.Collection: People
Schools should serve breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. No sugared drinks, no fast type food.Collection: School
Language instruction should start in the first grade. Writing, also.Collection: Writing
Poetry is the most informative of all of the arts because everything comes down to poetry. No matter what it is we are describing, ultimately we use either a metaphor; or we say "that's poetry in motion." You drink a glass of wine and say, "that's poetry in a bottle." Everything is poetry, so I think we come down to emotional information. And that's what poetry conveys.Collection: Art
I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )Collection: Learning
I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.Collection: Black
I used to dream militant dreams of taking over america to show these whitefolks how it should be done i used to dream radical dreams of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers of correct analysis i even used to think that i'd be the one to stop the riot and negotiate the peace then i awoke & dug that if i dreamed natural dreams of being a natural woman doing what a woman does when she's natural i would have a revolution.Collection: Dream
Who I really am keeps surprising me.Collection: Surprising