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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.

Nina Simone

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
NINA SIMONE

Breathe Children Life Music 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
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
NINA SIMONE

Depression Slave Sorrow Time
Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
NINA SIMONE

Mindset Music Myself Theory
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
My 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 SIMONE

Address Job Myself Popular See Song
I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
NINA SIMONE

Addiction Cat Drugs Myself Sound
I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat – a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
NINA SIMONE

Love Man Myself Pay Rich Sea Water
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 just human, I have faults like anyone.
NINA SIMONE

Human Mistake Myself
I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
NINA SIMONE

Doctor Music Myself 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
From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
NINA SIMONE

Beginning Black Woman
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
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
Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.
NINA SIMONE

Burden Gift Music Myself Remember

Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.

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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.

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Popular Authors

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