Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
NINA SIMONEFunk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
More Nina Simone Quotes
-
-
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.
NINA SIMONE -
I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
NINA SIMONE -
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.
NINA SIMONE -
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
NINA SIMONE -
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE -
Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel through music. Whew you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
NINA SIMONE -
I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
NINA SIMONE -
You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
NINA SIMONE -
Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE -
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.
NINA SIMONE -
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE -
I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.
NINA SIMONE -
I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
NINA SIMONE -
How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
NINA SIMONE -
I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.
NINA SIMONE -
I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.
NINA SIMONE -
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.
NINA SIMONE -
I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they’re not alone.
NINA SIMONE -
I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
NINA SIMONE -
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
NINA SIMONE -
I love the classics but there are many new ideas to be made into reality. I’d rather be concerned with my own thing. There are many masters of classical piano so I’ll leave it to them.
NINA SIMONE -
I’m sorry that I did not become the world’s first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.
NINA SIMONE -
To be young, gifted and black!
NINA SIMONE -
I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
NINA SIMONE -
If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
NINA SIMONE -
There’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
NINA SIMONE