Nina Simone Quotes (32 Quotes)

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.

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.

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.

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.

Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was.

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.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.

You know, I am a doctor of music.

I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.

When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.

I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.

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.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.

I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.

I am particular about the seating of the audience-also about how much money they pay-but most of all where they are seated. If I am going to sing something intimate, who am I going to sing it to.

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

I do not believe in mixing of the races. You can quote me. I don't believe in it, and I never have. I've never changed. I've never changed my hair. I've never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I've always been. I married a white man one time, but he was a creep.

Before she died we were able to laugh and chuckle about a lot of things.

I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel.

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.

I'm a real rebel with a cause.

With all the bombings going on, and the terrorism, I don't like it at all. It frightens me. I like being in the South of France. It is very beautiful, and we work very hard to keep it that way. We have a huge garden bearing fruit for the winter peaches, grapes, strawberries, and raspberries.

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.

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.

From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.

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.

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.

Desegregation is a joke.