Nina Simone Quotes

50 quotes in 606 categories

• 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 feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.
• 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…
• I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
• From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
• Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.
• I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.
• I'm a real rebel with a cause.
• 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…
• Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive…
• I don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
• I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
• Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.
• 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…
• 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…
• 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 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…
• There's no excuse for the young...
• Desegregation is a joke.
• What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.

Browse Nina Simone Quotes by Category