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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

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

Life Music Thinking Way
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.
NINA SIMONE

Difficult Hard Money Rule Standard Yourself
When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.
NINA SIMONE

Children Gift Help People
Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
NINA SIMONE

Instrument Myself Play
I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
NINA SIMONE

Addiction Cat Drugs Myself Sound
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE

Goal Musician Study
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.
NINA SIMONE

Explanation Expression Feeling Poetry Soul Stage Yourself
I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
NINA SIMONE

Instrument Myself Writing
You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
NINA SIMONE

Artist Help Reflection Time
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.
NINA SIMONE

Address Job Myself Popular See Song
I have a cultured manner of speaking.
NINA SIMONE

Culture Myself Speak
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
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?
NINA SIMONE

Herself Leadership Misunderstanding Singing Writing Yourself
The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.
NINA SIMONE

Kind Love Myself Naked People
If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
NINA SIMONE

Ideas Myself Writing
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

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

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Popular Authors

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