I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat – a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
NINA SIMONEJazz 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.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.
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My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.
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I don’t like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
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It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution – real girl’s talk.
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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What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
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It doesn’t matter to me what is going on today because my music encompasses every kind of mood that exists in human beings. That’s my stick.
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I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
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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.
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To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music.
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The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.
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I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.
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If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
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It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day and I’m feeling good.
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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.
NINA SIMONE






