Quotes from Nina Simone

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.

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

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 am particular about the seating of the audience - also about how much money they pay - but most of all where they are seated. If I am going to sing something intimate, who am I going to sing it to?

Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage. My mother is an Evangelist and I used to play the piano at her revival meetings.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

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

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

It doesn't matter to me what is going on today because my music encompasses every kind of mood that exists in human beings. That's my stick.

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 said, "who stole my song and got a hit out of it?

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

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.

Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I'm singing her music or not.

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

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

I don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

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

Music is the center of my life.

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 of people who are unable to express it

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

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

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.

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