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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

Nina Simone

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.
NINA SIMONE

Difficult Hard Money Rule Standard Yourself
Music 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 SIMONE

Feeling Moments Music Vibration World Yourself
Desegregation is a joke.
NINA SIMONE

Joke Segregation
What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
NINA SIMONE

Change Known Question Sanity Togetherness
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.
NINA SIMONE

Fly Myself Old Sun World
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
NINA SIMONE

Alive Black People Time
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
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
Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing Oh my God! Ooh Wow You can see colors through music. Anything!
NINA SIMONE

Colors Learning Mathematics Music Sadness Yourself
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
To be young, gifted and black!
NINA SIMONE

Black One Liner Young
I try to swim every damn day I can, and I’ve learned to scuba dive and snorkel.
NINA SIMONE

Day Learning Myself
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE

Goal Musician Study
I don’t like rap music at all. I don’t think it’s music. It’s just a beat and rapping.
NINA SIMONE

Music Myself
If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.
NINA SIMONE

Ideas Myself Writing
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
Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
NINA SIMONE

Mindset Music Myself Theory
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
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
NINA SIMONE

Black Definition Myself People
Music is the center of my life.
NINA SIMONE

Life Music One Liner
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

Easy Feeling Life Myself People
I have a cultured manner of speaking.
NINA SIMONE

Culture Myself Speak
Don’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 SIMONE

Herself Leadership Misunderstanding Singing Writing Yourself
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
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE

Abolish Slave Thinking Way
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

Angry Enough Kind Prejudice Worst Yourself
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

Dedication Introduction Music Myself Teacher World

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

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