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Life 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.

Nina Simone

I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.
NINA SIMONE

Human Mistake Myself
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

Equipment Myself Particular Thinking
I’m a real rebel with a cause.
NINA SIMONE

Reality Reason Rebel
I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
NINA SIMONE

Fear Freedom Myself
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 SIMONE

Explanation Expression Feeling Poetry Soul Stage Yourself
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

Awareness Different Gift Myself Thankful Work
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music.
NINA SIMONE

Music Myself People Play
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

Classics Love Master Myself
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE

Abolish Slave Thinking Way
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

Day Demand Myself Perfection Practice
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

Dare Order Question Symbol Wrong
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
Music is the center of my life.
NINA SIMONE

Life Music One Liner
You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
NINA SIMONE

Learning Love Serve Table Yourself
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
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
NINA SIMONE

Alive Black People Time
I have a cultured manner of speaking.
NINA SIMONE

Culture Myself Speak
Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn’t recognize my voice.
NINA SIMONE

Different Identity Myself Recognition Voice
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
To be young, gifted and black!
NINA SIMONE

Black One Liner Young
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 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

Death Poor Rich Rise Thinking
From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
NINA SIMONE

Beginning Black Woman
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

Alone Feeling Listening Myself People
It’s logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.
NINA SIMONE

Bad Communication Live Logic People Reflection Time Yourself
It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution – real girl’s talk.
NINA SIMONE

Reality Revolution Talk
You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
NINA SIMONE

Artist Help Reflection Time

Life 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.

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Life 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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