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" 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

Related Quotes:

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

" It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live. "

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

" 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. "

" Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking. "

" To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. And I mean that in every sense. "

Nina Simone

World

People

" I'll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear. I mean really, no fear! "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music. "

" You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there's the nagging worry that maybe... you're just no good. "

" When I'm on that stage, I assume honor. I assume compensation, and I should. "

" I flirt all the time. I like men! I don't think we can do without them. "

Nina Simone

Think

Men

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs. "

" 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. "

" All the time, there was the weight of my community's expectations on my shoulders. "

" 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

Listen

You

" 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. "

" 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. "

" My daughter is in more competition with me. I never wanted to be bigger than my mother or to challenge her. "

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