baseball

death

fact

fanaticism

master - slave dialectic

maturity

poetry

poverty

rage

self-knowledge

violence

writer

writing

race / ethnicity

African American

occupation / innovator as

poet

nationality

American

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

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

is probably the only active sport where you are not seriously required to be alive to play.

Baseball is already the world's most tranquil sport. It is probably the only active sport where you are not seriously required to be alive to play.

is only a tool to gain control over yourself and other people.

Facts are only tools to gain control over yourself and other people.

is unreliable... fanatics tend to burn out just when you need them.

Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.

is composed of the two most unlikeable figures in the world: a master and a slave.

There're two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave.

is about allowing oneself to make mistakes and create contradictions.

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.

 conveys emotional information, be it poetry proper, poetry in motion (sports) or poetry in a bottle (wine), or what not.

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.

is, to most Blacks, a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor... those who struggle are middle class.

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.

Rage is to writers what water is to fish.

is knowing who you are because you know who you aren't.

She knows who she is, because she knows who she isn't.

is like money in the bank... it's only helpful if you don't have to use it.

Violence is like money in the bank... it's only helpful if you don't have to use it.

is one for whom rage is as vital as water is to fish.

's authority must overcome the skepticism of the reader.

The catchword I use with my classes is: The authority of the writer always overcomes the skepticism of the reader.

is done because the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.

We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.

is a thing whereby the answer to everything is yes.

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

is such that while photographers direct the eye toward a particular object, writers are directing the heart and the soul.

Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.

is about empathy, not experience: if a writer wrote from his experience, he'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems.

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.

Nikki Giovanni

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Nikki Giovanni