Quotes from Nikki Giovanni

The problem with love is not what we feel but what we wish we felt when we began to feel we should feel something.

I don't know what Americans are afraid of. Everybody keeps running around saying things like, well we want to be safe. From what? The craziest thing in the world is us.

I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.

Rage is to writers what water is to fish.

Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.

Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.

Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes.

We are less lonely when we connect. Art is connection.

The only way you can grow is to let yourself make mistakes and create contradictions. As we learn new things, some of our old attitudes will change.

Show me someone not full of herself and I'll show you a hungry person.

Poems don't have to rhyme... Poems are about beauty and emotion; in other words poems are about feelings.

Now, everything I do, I do because I want to. And I believe the best is yet to come.

I am honest; I try to be truthful. I like people and wish us well. We are not always deserving of our own best wishes.

And like an unfaithful mate, once a car has let you down you never sort of trust it again.

I appreciate and enjoy my age.

The ability to take pride in your own work is one of the hallmarks of sanity.

Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.

I hope that, reading 'Rosa,' people will remember their own family and friends and talk about what they did and did not do.

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

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.

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 love because it's the only true adventure.

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.

show me someone not full of herself and i'll show you a hungry person