How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.
NINA SIMONELife is short. People are not easy to know. They’re not easy to know, so if you don’t tell them how you feel, you’re not going to get anywhere, I feel.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about… Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.
NINA SIMONE -
I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
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If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
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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 -
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE -
You’ve got to learn to leave the table When love’s no longer being served”.
NINA SIMONE -
Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE -
I love the classics but there are many new ideas to be made into reality. I’d rather be concerned with my own thing. There are many masters of classical piano so I’ll leave it to them.
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.
NINA SIMONE -
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
NINA SIMONE -
Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn’t recognize my voice.
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.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I’m singing her music or not.
NINA SIMONE -
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
NINA SIMONE