My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.
NINA SIMONEI feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they’re not alone.
More Nina Simone Quotes
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Since I was three I’ve been playing the piano. I’ve been onstage.
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Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
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What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
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Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
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You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
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Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
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Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn’t recognize my voice.
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I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.
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From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
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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.
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Desegregation is a joke.
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How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
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It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution – real girl’s talk.
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You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
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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






