I believe in racial memory too. I’m sure I’ve got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.
NINA SIMONEYou can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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Desegregation is a joke.
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You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
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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.
NINA SIMONE -
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 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 -
You can’t be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I’m very thankful for that. I’m very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.
NINA SIMONE -
Many times I feel different like a different person.
NINA SIMONE -
My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
You’ve got to learn to leave the table When love’s no longer being served”.
NINA SIMONE -
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music.
NINA SIMONE -
From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
NINA SIMONE -
What is love but a prelude to sorrow with heartache ahead for your goal.
NINA SIMONE -
I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
NINA SIMONE -
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE






