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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
Onstage
Piano
Playing
Since
Three

More quotes by 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 the time will come when the whole definition of pop music will change. It will get to the point where a song will not be a good song until it has a high level of creativity in writing and performance. In other words, in order to be popular, songs will have to meet these high standards.
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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.
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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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I don't like to go to strange places.
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.
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 play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs... and good ones.
Nina Simone
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You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
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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There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
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 don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
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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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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My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.
Nina Simone
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What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.
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 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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To be young, gifted and black!
Nina Simone