Nina Simone

It's a good time for black people to be alive.

— Nina Simone

“It is an artist's duty to reflect the times.”

— Nina Simone

I can't stand loud guitars that make me deaf.

— Nina Simone

I have a cultured manner of speaking.

— Nina Simone

I don't like to go to strange places.

— Nina Simone

There's no excuse for the young...

— Nina Simone

Desegregation is a joke.

— Nina Simone

Music is the center of my life.

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

I didn't get interested in music. It was a gift from God.

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

Sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate…

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it,…

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

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

You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there's the nagging…

— Nina Simone

My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the…

— Nina Simone

I applied for a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. I knew I was good enough, but they turned me…

— Nina Simone

Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with…

— Nina Simone

My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from…

— Nina Simone

As I got older though I wanted a life of my own. The classical training was very demanding and thorough. It was…

— Nina Simone

When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it.…

— Nina Simone

Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel...…

— Nina Simone

This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a…

— Nina Simone

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

— Nina Simone

As far as piano players are concerned, Oscar Peterson is my very favorite. I also like McCoy Tyner. I think that the…

— Nina Simone

I'm just human, I have faults like anyone

— Nina Simone

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

— Nina Simone

I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.

— Nina Simone

To be young, gifted and black!

— Nina Simone

I'm a real rebel with a cause.

— Nina Simone

I'm not a blues singer, I'm a diva.

— Nina Simone

I can read and arrange, but I can't write.

— Nina Simone