Quotes from Nikki Giovanni

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poets should be ashamed To die Before they kiss The 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

I like being The moon To your sun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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