Nikki Giovanni Quotes

I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.

the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by.

I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.

We love because it's the only true adventure.

Mistakes are a fact of life: It is the response to the error that counts.

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 it

i hope i die warmed by the life that i tried to live

Don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share but the words we never have to speak.

I am so hip even my errors are correct.

Nothing is easy to the unwilling.

You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.

Deal with yourself as a individual worthy of respect, and make everyone else deal with you the same way.

I’ve not learned the acceptable way of saying you fascinate me...I’ve not even learned how to say I like you without frightening people away-

A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked, don't want to go without guarantee. But that's what's got to happen. You go naked until you die

If you don't understand yourself you don't understand anybody else.

daddy says the world is a drum tight and hard and i told him i’m gonna beat out my own rhythm

I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.

I'm glad I understand that while language is a gift, listening is a responsibility. (U.S. poet and writer, 1943- )

Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't. ...If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.

Black love is black wealth

DONT EVER BE AFRAID TO COME TO ME N CRY ...DONT EVER HESITATE TO LOOK ME N THE EYE DONT EVER BE AFRAID TO TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL. REMEMBAER YOUR MY GIRL N WE GOTTA KEEP IT REAL.

I always loved English because whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are. English is much more a story of who we really are.

And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroes

These are all direct quotes, except every time they use a curse word, I'm going to use the name of a famous American poet: 'You Walt Whitman-ing, Edna St. Vincent Millay! Go Emily Dickinson your mom!' 'Thanks for the advice, you pathetic piece of E.E. Cummings, but I think I'm gonna pass.' 'You Robert Frost-ing Nikki Giovanni! Get a life, nerd. You're a virgin.' 'Hey bro, you need to go outside and get some fresh air into you. Or a girlfriend.' I need to get a girlfriend into me? I think that shows a fundamental lack of comprehension about how babies are made.

Floating to shore...riding a low moon...on a slow cloud.

If you're a writer, the answer to everything is yes.

Choices If i can't do what i want to do then my job is to not do what i don't want to do It's not the same thing but it's the best i can do 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 want Since i can't go where i need to go . . . then i must . . . go where the signs point through always understanding parallel movement isn't lateral When i can't express what i really feel i practice feeling what i can express and none of it is equal I know but that's why mankind alone among the animals learns to cry

i move on feeling and have learned to distrust those who don't.

Allowables I killed a spider Not a murderous brown recluse Nor even a black widow And if the truth were told this Was only a small spider Sort of papery spider Who should have run When I picked up the book But she didn't And she scared me And I smashed her I don't think I'm allowed To kill something Because I am Frightened.

Today I am 65 years old. I still look good. I appreciate and enjoy my age. A lot of people resist transition and therefore never allow themselves to enjoy who they are. Embrace the change, no matter what it is; once you do, you can learn about the new world you're in and take advantage of it. You still bring to bear all your prior experience, but you are riding on another level. It's completely liberating.

VISIBILITY - You've got to find a way to make people know you're there

Style has a profound meaning to Black Americans. If we can’t drive, we will invent walks and the world will envy the dexterity of our feet. If we can’t have ham, we will boil chitterlings; if we are given rotten peaches, we will make cobblers; if given scraps, we will make quilts; take away our drums, and we will clap our hands. We prove the human spirit will prevail. We will take what we have to make what we need. We need confidence in our knowledge of who we are.

Ego Tripping I was born in the congo I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect light I am bad I sat on the throne drinking nectar with allah I got hot and sent an ice age to europe to cool my thirst My oldest daughter is nefertiti the tears from my birth pains created the nile I am a beautiful woman I gazed on the forest and burned out the sahara desert with a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes I crossed it in two hours I am a gazelle so swift so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was three I gave my son hannibal an elephant He gave me rome for mother's day My strength flows ever on My son noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day I turned myself into myself and was jesus men intone my loving name All praises All praises I am the one who would save I sowed diamonds in my back yard My bowels deliver uranium the filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels On a trip north I caught a cold and blew My nose giving oil to the arab world I am so hip even my errors are correct I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky...

....but it cannot be a mistake to have cared...it cannot be an error to have tried....it cannot be incorrect to have loved.

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.

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 near

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 want

We are all more than our experiences And less than our dreams ~ from "I Am Glass

and he said: you pretty full of yourself ain’t chu so she replied: show me someone not full of herself and i’ll show you a hungry person

it is not unusual to sift through ashes and find an unburnt picture

Black Poetry is not for Black People…it is for everybody

Poets should be ashamed To die Before they kiss The sun

Wind as old as Rome outside my window, inky fleece clouds against charcoal crushed velvet skies, fall feels soulful, like a LaBelle octave.

I appreciate my my sleep In sleep my conversation is witty My home is dusted My office work is up to date The dog is even well behaved And food is on the table on time But then when I'm asleep I don't have you to clutter and confuse My hungry heart

I like being The moon To your sun

His headstone said FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST But death is a slave's freedom We seek the freedom of free men And the construction of a world Where Martin Luther King could have lived and preached non-violence

we used to talk all night and do things alone together and i’ve begun (as a reaction to a feeling) to balance the pleasure of loneliness against the pain of loving you

If were a shower I could saturate your hair Work my way over your lips Across your shoulders Around your waist Through your knees To the tips of your toes And back again Warm wet salty Sweet

BEFORE YOU JUMP OFF A BRIDGE OR HANG YOURSELF OR BE UNHAPPY PLEASE CONSIDER: LIVE FOR YOURSELF; THOSE WHO HATE YOU HAVE NO PURCHASE

I'm into my Black Thing And it's filling all My empty spots

Writing is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking.

The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.

Maybe what will really work is we all need to have a fear tree in our backyard or a small fear plant growing on our apartment windowsill. When we are feeling uneasy we pluck a few leaves and find the right place to put them. Champagne would be the number one choice but spaghetti works, too. Have a little fear at least once a week and you will build up your resistance. Like a vaccination. Then, when wars and hatreds come along you'll be able to recognize that's just another expression of Fear. No thanks, I've had my quota.

We cannot leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people

The night loves the stars as they play about the Darkness...the day loves the light caressing the sun...We love...those who do...because we live in a world requiring light and Darkness...partnership and solitude...sameness and difference...the familiar and the unknown...We love because it's the only true adventure... from Love: Is a Human Condition

I share with the painters the desire To put a three-dimensional picture On a one-dimensional surface from Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

poetry is motion graceful as a fawn gentle as a teardrop strong like the eye finding peace in a crowded room

The South lost ... and that is good ... and that hateful flag needs to come down ... and reparations need to be offered and if none of that can happen ... well ... let there be poetry

Grant me Love implies not desire but Commitment Commitment accepts Challenge Challenge embraces Theory And you and I will get Reason: A way to explore past actions and future dreams

If you don’t understand your past, you can’t transcend it, you might repeat it, you don’t understand half of your life. Knowledge is what’s important, you know? Not the erasure, but the confrontation of it.

In order to have a happy ending, in order to be triumphant, in order to be heroic, you have to tell your own story. The women's movement knows that; black people know that; brown people know that; yellow people know that. You have to be able to tell your own story in order to show that you are worthy--that you belong.

i wanted to take your hand and run with you together toward ourselves down the street to your street i wanted to laugh aloud and skip the notes past the marquee advertising “women in love” past the record shop with “The Spirit In The Dark” past the smoke shop past the park and no parking today signs past the people watching me in my blue velvet and i don’t remember what you wore but only that i didn’t want anything to be wearing you i wanted to give myself to the cyclone that is your arms and let you in the eye of my hurricane and know the calm before and some fall evening after the cocktails and the very expensive and very bad steak served with day-old baked potatoes after the second cup of coffee taken while listening to the rejected violin player maybe some fall evening when the taxis have passed you by and that light sort of rain that occasionally falls in new york begins you’ll take a thought and laugh aloud the notes carrying all the way over to me and we’ll run again together toward each other yes?

FOR SONIA SANCHEZ

do the rosa parks say no no do the rosa parks throw your hand in the air do the rosa parks say ... no no do the rosa parks tell them: that ain't fair

It is called education because it is learned. You do not have to have had an experience in order to sympathize or empathize with the subject. That is why books are written: so that we do not have to do the same things. We learn from experience, true; but we also learn from empathy.” A Theory of Patience

and everybody was happy that uncle lee was able to get that scholarship even though you wondered when you could do quadratic equations in your head why you had a basketball scholarship but you always knew that you had to take what they were giving since that was all you were going to get but you never fooled yourself about either the taking or the giving or the needing or the having you just sort of said to yourself I'll have to see what is being offered

I think you always write what you love. Whether it’s your grandmother or gourmet cooking or mountains and rivers. Sunsets kissing the tallest building or chipmunks scattering off to bed. I like the quiet. And I like the sound of the quiet. I’m a mountain girl. I listen and make lists of what I hear.

We in the Black Arts movement, which wasn't really a movement but a group of people who had similar objectives...

I am cotton candy on a rainy day the unrealized dream of an idea unborn from Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

sometimes when i wake up in the morning and see all the faces i just can't breathe from Sometimes

Poems are not advertisements braying For the good life They have serious work to do Birthing people burying people Celebrating joy mourning loss

Poems have serious business to do They need to bring down presidents who Start wars they themselves wouldn't go to

some say we are responsible for those we love others know we are responsible for those who love us

I am always lonely for things I've never had and people I've never been.

All mistakes teach us something, so there are, in reality, no mistakes.

and perhaps my worst habit is overloving and like most who live to excess i will be broken in two by my unwillingness to control my feelings

what this decade will be known for there is no doubt it is loneliness

No matter what else is wrong in the world a book will take you away from it.

If now isn't a good time for the truth, I don't see when we'll get to it.

english isn't a good language to express emotion through mostly i imagine because people try to speak english instead of trying to speak through it

Why would there be a destination when life itself is a journey? You go not to get there but to be there.

you see, my whole life is tied up to unhappiness it's father cooking breakfast and me getting fat as a hog or having no food at all and father proving his incompetence again i wish i knew how it would feel to be free it's having a job they won't let you work or no work at all castrating me (yes it happens to women too) it's a sex object if you're pretty and no love or love and no sex if you're fat get back fat black woman be a mother grandmother strong thing but not woman gameswoman romantic woman love needer man seeker dick eater sweat getter fuck needing love seeking woman it's a hole in your shoe and buying lil sis a dress and her saying you shouldn't when you know all too well that you shouldn't but smiles are only something we give to properly dressed social workers not each other only smiles of i know your game sister which isn't really a smile joy is finding a pregnant roach and squashing it not finding someone to hold let go get off get back don't turn me on you black dog how dare you care about me you ain't go no good sense cause i ain't shit you must be lower than that to care it's a filthy house with yesterday's watermelon and monday's tears cause true ladies don't know how to clean it's intellectual devastation of everybody to avoid emotional commitment "yeah honey i would've married him but he didn't have no degree" it's knock-kneed mini skirted wig wearing died blond mamma's scar born dead my scorn your whore rough heeeled broken nailed powdered face me whose whole life is tied up to unhappiness cause it's the only for real thing i know

I teach poetry to teens, and I always include a picture of the poet on the handout. I want my readers to see Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni. I want them to know what Sandra Cisneros, Natalie Diaz, and Patricia Smith look like. Some will see their reflections looking back at them, others won't. Both are important. Who makes the work is just as important as the work made.

I'm told by my young friends that experience is much more important than books. Of course Ben Franklin had something to say about experience and fools, but even Franklin thought that a fool would learn by his experience. That has proven false in the modern world. Some people are simply unwilling to learn under any circumstances, which maybe, even then, wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so damned proud of it.

The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things is the enemy, patriarchy in medicine, patriarchy in schools, or in literature.

and as soon as i die i hope everyone who loved me learns the meaning of my death which is a simple lesson don't do what you do very well very well and enjoy it it scares white folk and makes black ones truly mad

hearing C-flat against an F-minor humming the lullaby to the rhythm of you reading that silly novel you try to complete each night I rest in your rest while the day snuggles in and sings me to sleep ‘After the Day

and sometimes on rainy nights you see an old white woman who maybe you'd really care about except that you're a young Black woman whose job it is to kill maim or seriously make her question the validity of her existence

I always thought that would be really neat if black people ever got control of the United States we would, of course, tear down some of the statues because we just don't like them...like all of Richmond would probably not have a statue standing.

It is difficult to be an artist, because what you can see needs to be done and what you can achieve are generally two very opposite things. The two are like yin and yang, north and south, positive and negative. What you see is just totally opposite of what the reality can be, and that's unfortunate. But there are things we can do. Writers can either repave--we fill in some of the cracks in the road that are already there--or we start to knock down some of the weeds to make a clearing in the wilderness.

The tragic loneliness black women consistently face as we stand before judgmental others—sometimes white, but sometimes black; sometimes male, but sometimes female—demands that we have some wisdom, experience, and some passion with which to combat this abuse.

If loneliness were a grape the wine would be vintage If it were a wood the furniture would be mahogany But since it is life it is Cotton Candy on a rainy day The sweet soft essence of possibility Never quite maturing from Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

I think that, in reality, there is something wrong with human beings, and unless we are willing to face the fact that something is really wrong with human beings, unless we are willing to face the fact that somewhere in our imaginations we are evil, vicious people, it is not going to work.

The main advantage about being over thirty is you no longer have to pretend you have a date on Friday night or even, lo and behold, that you want one. You can now easily say to yourself, "I hope no one wants to ask me to do anything because I am so looking forward to a hot tub and a midnight snack.

truck…Black soliders returning from American’s wars abroad were tarred and feathered…Black soldiers returning from America’s wars in uniform were castrated and lynched…Brave Black soldiers had their medals of honor retracted and denied   So Truman passed a law not for Black people…we have always been better than the country we served…but to tell the whites who thought it more important to be white than united…that Black people are an integral if not essential part of this nation…And we are to be accepted…and honored…for the historic good wishes and sacrifices we offered America…Not only fifty years ago

Writing for the gallery is something that a writer must resist no matter who he is. You know the writers that are writing for their audience because they write the same book over and over again with the sort of cute things their readership likes. Serious writers write things that compel them, new challenges, new situations, and a new landscape that they have not been in before.

We look, most humans, for a way to be warm and safe; for a haven for our bodies when, once fire was discovered and clothes invented, when once we understood why the squirrels moved seeds around and what to call the plant the jaguar got giggly off of, when once we no longer worried about being eaten by other mammals or each other we looked for meaning with this life we were given.

This country is a land mass that could be called anything, and for people to act like this is some kind of sacred territory is an insanity. It's just a bunch of people trying to live together, and if we're not going to be part of a dream of equality--a part of a dream of that which is the best of us, the idea that people help one another--if we're not going to do that, then this land mass doesn't any more deserve to be revered than anything else.

i think any poem worth its salt, if poems can indeed be salty, should allow the reader to think. this poem is of course a chronological poem tracing the development of humans through the movement of black women. i have no feelings that the poem is exclusive of any one but i wanted to write a sassy hands-on-the-hips poem from the understanding that i am a woman and indeed was once a girl. i think it works because the more you know about anthropology and history the more you can follow what i am saying; on the other hand you can be a little child with no previous experiences and catch the joy of the poem. it goes from the first human bones discovered all the way to the space age. what has been included is as important to me as what has been excluded. what i strove to do was show progress, movement, humor and a bit of pride. this is the most i’ve ever commented on any poem of mine since i tend to agree with t.s. eliot when he said a poet was the last person to know what the poem was/is about.