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.
NINA SIMONEThere’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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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.
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I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.
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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.
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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.
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That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
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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 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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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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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 play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
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I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
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Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn’t recognize my voice.
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To be young, gifted and black!
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I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.
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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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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
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It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
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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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You’ve got to learn to leave the table When love’s no longer being served”.
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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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My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.
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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 think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don’t think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.
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I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
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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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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