Quotes from Nina Simone

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 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.

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.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

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.

Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing... Oh my God! Ooh... Wow... You can see colors through music. Anything!

I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I've dreamed.

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

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.

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

I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I've done my whole life, without thought.

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

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

I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.

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

It's a good time for black people to be alive.

It's time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.

I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.

Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.

I'm a real rebel with a cause.

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.

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.