Nina Simone Quotes

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.

I don't like to go to strange places.

I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

I'm sorry that I did not become the world's first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.

Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.

I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I've done my whole life, without thought.

When I choose material for an album all these songs I grew up with pour into my head.

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.

Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.

There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.

Many times I feel different like a different person.

It's a good time for black people to be alive.

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

To be young, gifted and black!

Music is the center of my life.

I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.

It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.

I was reared in the church from the age of three. I've played piano since I was three. I performed at revivals and for my people around North Carolina for several years. People around town collected money to send me to school.

That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die.

I believe in racial memory too. I'm sure I've got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.

That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

You can't be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I'm very thankful for that. I'm very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.

Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

I believe the time will come when the whole definition of pop music will change. It will get to the point where a song will not be a good song until it has a high level of creativity in writing and performance. In other words, in order to be popular, songs will have to meet these high standards.

I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I've dreamed.

I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else's. That's always been my dream.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.

I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel.

By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.

Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.

My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.

This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.

Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I'm singing her music or not.

This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.

My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.

Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was.

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.