black
grey
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You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.

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

Dedication Introduction Music Myself Teacher World
Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.
NINA SIMONE

Burden Myself Planet Talent
Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
NINA SIMONE

Instrument Myself Play
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
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE

Abolish Slave Thinking Way
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE

Goal Musician Study
I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
NINA SIMONE

Instrument Myself Writing
I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.
NINA SIMONE

Couple Excitement Intense Love Myself Reading
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
NINA SIMONE

Alive Black People Time
Many times I feel different like a different person.
NINA SIMONE

Different Feeling Person Time
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
NINA SIMONE

Important Music Myself Thinking
It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution – real girl’s talk.
NINA SIMONE

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

Breathe Children Life Music Myself
I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.
NINA SIMONE

Alive Chance Dreams Feeling Myself
Music is an art and art has its own rules.
NINA SIMONE

Art Music Rule
Music is the center of my life.
NINA SIMONE

Life Music One Liner
How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
NINA SIMONE

Artist Reflection Time
Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn’t recognize my voice.
NINA SIMONE

Different Identity Myself Recognition Voice
It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day and I’m feeling good.
NINA SIMONE

Day Feeling Good Morning Myself
I’m a real rebel with a cause.
NINA SIMONE

Reality Reason Rebel
You’ve got to learn to leave the table When love’s no longer being served”.
NINA SIMONE

Learning Serve 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
It’s time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.
NINA SIMONE

Failure Start Success Time Work
I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
NINA SIMONE

Fear Freedom Myself
From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
NINA SIMONE

Beginning Black Woman
I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.
NINA SIMONE

Different Myself Thinking
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 SIMONE

Angry Enough Kind Prejudice Worst Yourself

You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.

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You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.

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Popular Authors

More Nina Simone Quotes