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" I have to be composed; I have to be poised. I have to remember what my first piano teacher told me: 'You do not touch that piano until you are ready and until they are ready to listen to you. "
Nina Simone
Me
Listen
You
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" Desegregation is a joke. "
Nina Simone
Joke
" 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
Important
Music
" 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
Life
Teacher
My Life
" I'm not a blues singer, I'm a diva. "
Nina Simone
Singer
Diva
Blues
" I'm a real rebel with a cause. "
Nina Simone
Rebel
Cause
Real
" I think that the artists who don't get involved in preaching messages probably are happier - but you see, I have to live with Nina, and that is very difficult. "
Nina Simone
Who
You
See
" My daughter is in more competition with me. I never wanted to be bigger than my mother or to challenge her. "
Nina Simone
Mother
Daughter
Competition
" What I was interested in was conveying an emotional message, which means using everything you've got inside you sometimes to barely make a note, or if you have to strain to sing, you sing. "
Nina Simone
You
Emotional
Everything
" I flirt all the time. I like men! I don't think we can do without them. "
Nina Simone
Think
Like
Men
" 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
Think
World
Top
" The protest years were over, not just for me but for a whole generation, and in music, just like in politics, many of the greatest talents were dead or in exile, and their place was filled by third-rate imitators. "
Nina Simone
Music
Generation
Politics
" You get racism crossing the street; it's in the very fabric of American society. "
Nina Simone
American
Society
Street
" There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were. "
Nina Simone
Who
Heroes
Not Knowing
" Did you know that the human voice is the only pure instrument? That it has notes no other instrument has? It's like being between the keys of a piano. The notes are there, you can sing them, but they can't be found on any instrument. That's like me. I live in between this. I live in both worlds, the black and white world. "
Nina Simone
Me
Voice
World
" Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music. "
Nina Simone
White
Black
Jazz
" When I'm on that stage, I assume honor. I assume compensation, and I should. "
Nina Simone
Stage
Compensation
Assume
" I want to shake people up so bad, that when they leave a nightclub where I've performed, I just want them to be to pieces. "
Nina Simone
Want
Bad
Leave
" From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman. "
Nina Simone
Woman
White
Man
" 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
World
Think
Home
" I didn't get interested in music. It was a gift from God. "
Nina Simone
Interested
God
Gift
" 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
Rise
Rich
People
" As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world. "
Nina Simone
People
World
American
" To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. And I mean that in every sense. "
Nina Simone
Me
World
People
" I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs. "
Nina Simone
Songs
Popular
Player
" At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved. "
Nina Simone
Think
You
Day
" 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
Thinking
Hurt
Good
" I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going. "
Nina Simone
Music
Over
Think
" All the time, there was the weight of my community's expectations on my shoulders. "
Nina Simone
Time
Shoulders
Community
" 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
Man
Love Is
Music
" I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping. "
Nina Simone
Like
Beat
Think