How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
NINA SIMONEYou can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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I don’t like rap music at all. I don’t think it’s music. It’s just a beat and rapping.
NINA SIMONE -
I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
NINA SIMONE -
Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
NINA SIMONE -
The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else’s. That’s always been my dream.
NINA SIMONE -
You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
I don’t like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
NINA SIMONE -
My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.
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 -
I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
NINA SIMONE -
Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I’m singing her music or not.
NINA SIMONE -
Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I’m lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.
NINA SIMONE -
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
NINA SIMONE -
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 -
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
NINA SIMONE -
I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.
NINA SIMONE