Nikki Giovanni
the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by.Collection: World
No one needs to teach you to be mean; we need to be taught to be kind.Collection: Mean
Black love is black wealthCollection: Love Is
I don't have a life-style, I have a life.Collection: Style
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.Collection: White
Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.Collection: People
History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened.Collection: Quitting
If i can't have what i want . . . then my job is to want what i've got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to wantCollection: Jobs
There is no such thing as writer's block. There is only not enough information. If you can't write, learn something.Collection: Block
Libraries...house our dreams.Collection: Dream
If you are sitting there waiting for someone to tell you how wonderful you are, you'll never get anything done. Women need to get over being women. I'm tired of that socialization of women; that we are always supposed to be sitting around pleasing somebody.Collection: Tired
The more you love someone the more he wants from you and the less you have to give since you've already given him your love.Collection: Love
Daddy says the world is a drum tight and hard and I told him I'm gonna beat out my own rhythm.Collection: Daddy
I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Climbing
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.Collection: Love
Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happyCollection: Love
It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.Collection: Interesting
VISIBILITY - You've got to find a way to make people know you're thereCollection: People
i hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to liveCollection: Dies
America may not be the best nation on earth, but it has conceived loftier ideals and dreamed higher dreams than any other nation. America is a heterogeneous nation of many different people of different races, religions, and creeds. Should this experiment go forth and prosper, we will have offered humans a new way to look at life; should it fail, we will simply go the way of all failed civilizations.Collection: Dream
All systems require myths for their longevity.Collection: Longevity
But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.Collection: Oppressed
Life is a process where people mix and match, fall apart and come back together.Collection: Life
Everyone understands that love comes in many different packages and is used in many different ways. You cannot love beyond your years, nor can you fail to love beneath them... In other words, I think you get the love you need when you open your heart.Collection: Love You
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.Collection: Children
Life is a marvelous, transitory adventure.Collection: Life
Rage is to writers what water is to fish.Collection: Anger
I am so hip even my errors are correctCollection: Errors
I think life is cotton candy on a rainy day. For those who grew up with cotton candy the old-fashioned way, it is very delicate. Pre-made cotton candy that has preservatives is not nearly as good or true. True cotton candy is sugar, color, and air and it melts very quickly. That was the metaphor - it can't be preserved, it can't be put aside, it can't be banked. It has to be experienced, like life.Collection: Rainy Day
I grow old though pleased with my memories The tasks I can no longer complete Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past I offer no apology only this plea: When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt That I might keep some child warm And some old person with no one else to talk to Will hear my whispers And cuddle nearCollection: Quilts
My work is a part of me and I know it. I have no reason to try to pick one part of me out from the rest. I only see my work, or rather I should say I see my work only telling my part of the human experience.Collection: Trying
I think we're always in love. It's that simple. And it's important to remember that love doesn't have anything to do with sex. It's two different things. Being in love is the happy part. I was teasing my gentleman, "We know that you're in love when you cook for us." It's true. When men cook for you, they're in love.Collection: Being In Love
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.Collection: Jobs
I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.Collection: Jazz
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.Collection: Thinking
The future is in good hands.Collection: Hands
School should be eleven months of the year.Collection: School
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.Collection: Teacher
and sometimes I sit down at my typewriter and I think not of someone cause there isn't anyone to think about and i wonder is it worth itCollection: Thinking
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.Collection: Wine
I am ever fascinated by the human experience and by, actually, human beings.Collection: Human Experience
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.Collection: People
The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.Collection: Black
And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroesCollection: Children
You're only as good as your last book.Collection: Book
God knows it's a sign of a really sick mind to see grown people, adults with responsibilities, wearing class rings.Collection: Responsibility