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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

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

Mindset Music Myself Theory
I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I’ve done my whole life, without thought.
NINA SIMONE

Activity Life Myself Singer
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 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
I’m sorry that I did not become the world’s first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.
NINA SIMONE

Happiness Musician Myself Sorry World
When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.
NINA SIMONE

Children Gift Help People
That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
NINA SIMONE

Goal Musician Study
I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.
NINA SIMONE

Different Myself Thinking
To be young, gifted and black!
NINA SIMONE

Black One Liner Young
How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
NINA SIMONE

Artist Reflection Time
I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
NINA SIMONE

Assosiation Awareness Drinking Life Music
My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.
NINA SIMONE

Home Name Sound Stage
I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
NINA SIMONE

Fear Freedom Myself
I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.
NINA SIMONE

Myself See Tree Wine
Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I’m singing her music or not.
NINA SIMONE

Day Difficult Emotional Music Myself
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

Dedication Excellence Freedom Music Myself Pursue
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.
NINA SIMONE

Important Music Myself Thinking
Many times I feel different like a different person.
NINA SIMONE

Different Feeling Person Time
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
NINA SIMONE

Alive Black People Time
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 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
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

Blood Identity Memories Myself Race
Slavery has never been abolished from America’s way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE

Abolish Slave Thinking Way
Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.
NINA SIMONE

Life Music Thinking Way
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
Desegregation is a joke.
NINA SIMONE

Joke Segregation
Music is an art and art has its own rules.
NINA SIMONE

Art Music Rule

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Nina Simone Quotes