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Music is the center of my life.

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

Description Invention Music Myself Play Thinking Way
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.
NINA SIMONE

Existence Kind Music Myself
If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.
NINA SIMONE

Equipment Myself Particular Thinking
Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.
NINA SIMONE

Burden Gift Music Myself Remember
Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing Oh my God! Ooh Wow You can see colors through music. Anything!
NINA SIMONE

Colors Learning Mathematics Music Sadness Yourself
I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
NINA SIMONE

Day Demand Myself Perfection Practice
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.
NINA SIMONE

Dare Order Question Symbol Wrong
I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
NINA SIMONE

Instrument Myself Writing
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE

Goal Musician Study
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
NINA SIMONE

Depression Slave Sorrow Time
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

Alone Feeling Listening Myself People
I don’t like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
NINA SIMONE

Myself Place Strange Time Travel
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.
NINA SIMONE

Easy Feeling Life Myself People
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
NINA SIMONE

Alive Black People Time
If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
NINA SIMONE

Ideas Myself Writing
Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
NINA SIMONE

Instrument Myself Play

Music is the center of my life.

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Music is the center of my life.

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