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 SIMONETheory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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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.
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 -
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.
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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
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My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.
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You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
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I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat – a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
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I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.
NINA SIMONE -
I have a cultured manner of speaking.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I’m feeling good I’m feeling good.
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To be young, gifted and black!
NINA SIMONE -
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
NINA SIMONE -
I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
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 think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.
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.
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I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE -
Many times I feel different like a different person.
NINA SIMONE -
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 would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
NINA SIMONE -
Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
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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.
NINA SIMONE