Quote

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

Nina Simone

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Nina Simone
Age: 75 †
Born: 1933
Born: February 21
Died: 2008
Died: April 21
Composer
Jazz Pianist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Tryon
North Carolina
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
High Priestess of Soul
Thinking
Life
Jazz
Music
Way

More quotes by Nina Simone

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To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
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There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
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It is difficult to retain your standards with the pressure of trying to make money, which always has its rules...It's hard to walk the tightrope of doing what you think is your best and making money at it.
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From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
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I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.
Nina Simone
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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.
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I don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
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When I choose material for an album all these songs I grew up with pour into my head.
Nina Simone
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There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
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Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
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I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
Nina Simone
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It's a good time for black people to be alive.
Nina Simone
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I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
Nina Simone
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I don't like to go to strange places.
Nina Simone
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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
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This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
Nina Simone
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It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.
Nina Simone
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That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
Nina Simone
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I can't stand loud guitars that make me deaf.
Nina Simone