From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
NINA SIMONEFrom the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
NINA SIMONEThe allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.
NINA SIMONEI 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 SIMONEI 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 SIMONEMy job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I’m trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.
NINA SIMONETalent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.
NINA SIMONEI feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they’re not alone.
NINA SIMONEI demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.
NINA SIMONEI had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
NINA SIMONEMy name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.
NINA SIMONEDesegregation is a joke.
NINA SIMONEDon’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band’s lead singer, Eric Burdon. “So you’re the honky,” she said, “who stole my song and got a hit out of it?
NINA SIMONEI was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
NINA SIMONEWhat kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
NINA SIMONEMusic 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 SIMONEThere’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
NINA SIMONE