“Choose whatever box you like, Mike. Just don't put me in one, son. Believe me, I won't fit.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“You have to take people one at a time, check out what's in their head and heart before you judge.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“Only the wind shatters the silence. I have been here before choking in solitude.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“If a dream is in your heart, you never lose it.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“The fact is that you are more comfortable with myth than man.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“So don't tell me that I can't fit in. My heart beats like a talking drum.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“Forget who I really am, who I really want to be.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“Jealousy is a waste of energy...focus on what I have, not what I don't.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from 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, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“Do something about it, or shut up.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“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, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“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, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“The day she clips her way out of her cocoon, the only sound she plans to hear is a deafening cheer.”
― Nikki Grimes, quote from 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, quote from Bronx Masquerade
“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, quote from Bronx Masquerade
Nikki Grimes
Born place: in New York City, New York, The United States
Born date October 20, 1950
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“It was like hacking through a thicket of raw tension whenever we were near each other.”
― Jessica Shirvington, quote from Enticed
“But I want to read a book!" Charmain protested.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from House of Many Ways
“There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from The Elephant Vanishes
“It wasn’t long before God made me realise that the true glory is that which is eternal and that, to achieve it, there is no need to perform outstanding deeds. Instead, one must remain hidden and perform one’s good deeds so that the right hand knows not what the left hand does. When I read stories about the deeds of the great French heroines — especially of the Venerable Joan of Arc, I longed to imitate them and felt stirred by the same inspiration which moved them. It was then that I received one of the greatest graces of my life, for, at that age, I didn’t receive the spiritual enlightenment which now floods my soul. I was made to understand that the glory I was to win would never be seen during my lifetime . . .”
― Thérèse de Lisieux, quote from Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux
“The problem in our society and in our schools is to inclulcate, without overdoing it, the notion of education, as in the Latin educere--to lead, to bring out what is in someone rather than merely to indoctrinate him/her from the outside. (89)”
― Joseph Campbell, quote from Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
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Billy Budd and Other...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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