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Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

Nina Simone

My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.
NINA SIMONE

Home Name Sound Stage
I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I’ve done my whole life, without thought.
NINA SIMONE

Activity Life Myself Singer
I’m a real rebel with a cause.
NINA SIMONE

Reality Reason Rebel
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.
NINA SIMONE

Death Poor Rich Rise Thinking
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 one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel through music. Whew you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
NINA SIMONE

Feeling Moments Music Vibration World 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
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
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
NINA SIMONE

Depression Slave Sorrow Time
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

Music Myself People Play
You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
NINA SIMONE

Learning Love Serve Table Yourself
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE

Goal Musician Study
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
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
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

Bad Communication Live Logic People Reflection Time Yourself
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.
NINA SIMONE

Myself See Tree Wine

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

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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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Popular Authors

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