Nikki Grimes > Quotes

“Choose whatever box you like, Mike. Just don't put me in one, son. Believe me, I won't fit.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Trauma is a memory hog,
It gobbles up all available space
in the brain,
leaves little room to mark
daily happenstances,
or even routine injuries
which are less than
life-threatening.”
― Nikki Grimes, Ordinary Hazards

“You have to take people one at a time, check out what's in their head and heart before you judge.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Only the wind shatters the silence. I have been here before choking in solitude.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Love is not me being who you want. Your definition is a whirlpool trying to suck me in and I'm drowning. Don't you see?...It's time...Time you stop telling me who to be, how to live. This is my portrait. You chose your canvas. Let me choose mine.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“At the edge of heartbreak, we both take a leap into the unknown...That's when we see it, a buoy callled friendship.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Stories are breadcrumbs.
Just follow the trail of books
and you will find me
lost among the galaxies
of scorched stars and ships to Mars.”
― Nikki Grimes, Garvey's Choice

“If a dream is in your heart, you never lose it.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Jealousy is a waste of energy...focus on what I have, not what I don't.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“You laugh, rap my woody shell with wicked whispers shaped like knuckles, then toss me aside. Lucky for me, I don't bruise easily. Besides, you loss is someone else's gain for I am coconut, and the heart of me is sweeter than you know.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Is there more to me?
Sure. Kids yell 'albino boy.'
I don't turn around.
Choose the name you answer to.
No one can do that but you.”
― Nikki Grimes, Garvey's Choice

“The day she clips her way out of her cocoon, the only sound she plans to hear is a deafening cheer.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“I'd pretend their words were water and let them roll off my back. Now, I'm nobody's duck, and their words stung a whole lot more than water.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“So don't tell me that I can't fit in. My heart beats like a talking drum.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Do something about it, or shut up.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“The fact is that you are more comfortable with myth than man.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Forget who I really am, who I really want to be.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“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.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“I woke up this morning exhausted from hiding the me of me. So I stand here confiding there's more to Devon than jump shot and rim. I'm more than tall and lengthy of limb. I dare you to peep behind these eyes, discover the poet in tough-guy disguise. Don't call me Jump Shot. My name is surprise.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“I didn't have much in the world, but my fears were my own.”
― Nikki Grimes, Ordinary Hazards

“I'm an artist...The difference is that I don't tell anybody. I refuse to give them new reasons to laugh at me.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“He'll never do it again,' she swears, but he will because she'll let him. Now me? I've got no use for imitation love that packs a punch.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“MY BLACK ME

My father fed me
Invisible Man,
Native Son,
No Longer at Ease,
Black Man's Burden,
and the more I read,
the madder I got,
and I already
had reason
to scream,
but my father
kept me dreaming
of what words
I might bring
to the world.”
― Nikki Grimes, Ordinary Hazards

“The crashing sound of years lost shattered in her ears, and new fears emerged from the looking glass. Sometimes I wonder if she'll ever sing again.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“How good is different? I search stories for someone who resembles me. If it weren't for books and Joe, "different" would just be lonely.”
― Nikki Grimes, Garvey's Choice

“Ready or not, I peer into your soul and dive deep... Your eyes don't like what I see. You don't want to be me. So you curse and smash the mirror which gets you what? A bit of blood , a handful of glass splinters, another source of pain.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“The lack of goodness in the young gun's heart was oxygen to the fire, and so he burned for a good long while before I woke. The dream stoked my faith in the judgment and justice that will come someday or this afternoon soon. I turn up the collar of my white robe, relieved to know that God's got me covered 'cause I'm good, but not that good.”
― Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade

“Why let Angela call me something that I’m not? Or let her tease me? Bad enough the kids at school kick my heart around”
― Nikki Grimes, Garvey's Choice

“Son, don't mind what's missing. Count allthat's free: friendship, laughter, all thelove your heart can carry, and time -- count time.”
― Nikki Grimes, One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance

“this writing thing
was some kind of magic trick
I didn't yet understand,
except for this:
Magicians rarely share
their secrets.”
― Nikki Grimes, Ordinary Hazards