Nikki Grimes Quotes

For I am coconut / and the heart of me / is sweeter / than you know.

Something about your life always makes its way into your stories. Thats just the nature of the beast.

When I think of the Harlem Renaissance, I think of bright colors, and bold, dynamic art. African American artists of the period were, in large measure, breaking out of the constrictions white society had set for them. They were claiming and remaking their own images, and doing so in bold and striking ways.

Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away.

There's something about a blank page that makes me tingle.

Each of us is tied, in some fashion, to the past. We are all part of a continuum.

I'm an artist...The difference is that I don't tell anybody. I refuse to give them new reasons to laugh at me.

I am particularly conscious of my connection to the poets of the Harlem Renaissance because I, too, am a Black poet, born into, and shaped by, the very community in which those poets of the past produced so much of the work we associate with the Harlem Renaissance. We speak from the same place, both literally and metaphorically.