Nina Simone famous quotes

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.
-- Nina Simone

#Dream #Kissing #Years

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".
-- Nina Simone

#Tables

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
-- Nina Simone

#Artist #Helping #Duty

I'm just human, I have faults like anyone
-- Nina Simone

#Faults #Humans

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
-- Nina Simone

#Believe #Men #Hair

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
-- Nina Simone

#Knowing #Together #Sane

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

#Heart #People #Soul

You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.
-- Nina Simone

#Giving #Next

To be young, gifted and black!
-- Nina Simone

#Black #Young #Gifted

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

#Thinking #America #Racism

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

#Hurt #Thinking #Self

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.
-- Nina Simone

#Life Is Short #People #How You Feel

I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.
-- Nina Simone

#Fun #People #Feels

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

#Romantic #Heart #Blow

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

#Music #Joy #Jazz

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

#Heart #Wine #Tree

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

#Freedom #Years #Excellence

There's no excuse for the young...
-- Nina Simone

#African American #No Excuses #Excuse

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #Rights #People

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

#Music #White #People

What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.
-- Nina Simone

#Love #Goal #Heartache

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

#Hero #Knowing #Firefighter

I'm a real rebel with a cause.
-- Nina Simone

#Real #Reality #Causes

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

#Children #Breathing #Everyday

Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #Thinking #Way

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.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #Song #Voice

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?
-- Nina Simone

#Pay #Intimate #Audience

I don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #Cat #Drug

This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
-- Nina Simone

#World #Made

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

#Music #Song #Misunderstood

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

#Crazy #Home #Thinking

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

#Music #Remember #Burden

Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I'm feeling good I'm feeling good
-- Nina Simone

#Inspirational #Sky #Feel Good

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

#Success #Determination #Practice

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.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #People #Choices

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

#First Love #Love Is #Men

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

#Teacher #World #Concerts

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 #Mean #Play

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #Doctors #Like You

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

#Thinking #People #Black

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

#Thinking #America #Important

Desegregation is a joke.
-- Nina Simone

#Brotherhood #Jokes

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
-- Nina Simone

#Long #Joy #Remember

How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
-- Nina Simone

#Artist

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

#Rap #Thinking #Hip Hop

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

#Umpires #Swim #Trying

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.
-- Nina Simone

#Music #Thinking #Play

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

#Men #White #Racism

It's a new dawn, it's a new day...and I'm feeling good.
-- Nina Simone

#New Day #Feel Good #Feelings

It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girl's talk.
-- Nina Simone

#Girl #Real #Revolution

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.
-- Nina Simone

#Thinking #Vaccines #Forever

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

#Song #Jobs #Singing