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.
NINA SIMONEI demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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We have ordered things so long in a certain way, we are numb. Nobody dares question it. This is what is wrong, symbolically, with America.
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Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I’m singing her music or not.
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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.
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I don’t like rap music at all. I don’t think it’s music. It’s just a beat and rapping.
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It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day and I’m feeling good.
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How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
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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.
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My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.
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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.
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Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.
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It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
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I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.
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Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.
NINA SIMONE -
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band’s lead singer, Eric Burdon. “So you’re the honky,” she said, “who stole my song and got a hit out of it?
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I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
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It is difficult to retain your standards with the pressure of trying to make money, which always has its rules. It’s hard to walk the tightrope of doing what you think is your best and making money at it.
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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.
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I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
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Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
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Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
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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.
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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.
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Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
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I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I’ve done my whole life, without thought.
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Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I’m lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.
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Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn’t recognize my voice.
NINA SIMONE