I have a cultured manner of speaking.
NINA SIMONEFunk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
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Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
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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.
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I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
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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.
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You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
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I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
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Music is the center of my life.
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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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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.
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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.
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It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution – real girl’s talk.
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Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
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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