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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
I want to shake people up so bad, that when they leave a nightclub where I've performed, I just want them to… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don't think the black people are going to… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
As far as piano players are concerned, Oscar Peterson is my very favorite. I also like McCoy Tyner. I think that the… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
I was reared in the church from the age of three. I've played piano since I was three. I performed at revivals… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. And I mean that in every sense. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music...… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
I don't like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
We have ordered things so long in a certain way, we are numb. Nobody dares question it. This is what is wrong, symbolically, with… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
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… — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist. — Nina Simone Copy Share Image
