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My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.

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
Done
East
Nelson
Trying
South
Asia
World
Singing
Address
Songs
Addresses
Middle
Africa
Song
Popular
Jobs
Third
Speak
Thirds
Mandela

More quotes by Nina Simone

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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.
Nina Simone
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The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.
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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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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
Nina Simone
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Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
Nina Simone
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I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel.
Nina Simone
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I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
Nina Simone
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To be young, gifted and black!
Nina Simone
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I don't like to go to strange places.
Nina Simone
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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.
Nina Simone
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I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.
Nina Simone
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Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
Nina Simone
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I believe in racial memory too. I'm sure I've got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.
Nina Simone
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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
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I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be
Nina Simone
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I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.
Nina Simone
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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.
Nina Simone
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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.
Nina Simone
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Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.
Nina Simone