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Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.

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
Playing
Since
Three
Onstage
Piano

More quotes by Nina Simone

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I love the classics but there are many new ideas to be made into reality. I'd rather be concerned with my own thing. There are many masters of classical piano so I'll leave it to them.
Nina Simone
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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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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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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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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.
Nina Simone
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I do not believe in mixing of the races. You can quote me. I don't believe in it, and I never have. I've never changed. I've never changed my hair. I've never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I've always been. I married a white man one time, but he was a creep
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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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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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I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.
Nina Simone
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I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs... and good ones.
Nina Simone
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You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
Nina Simone
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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.
Nina Simone
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I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.
Nina Simone
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Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.
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 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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Desegregation is a joke.
Nina Simone
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I know I'm different, but I don't think about it.
Nina Simone
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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.
Nina Simone
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This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
Nina Simone