Quote

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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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
Songs
Couple
Lines
Reading
Jacques
Song
Intensely
Love
Terribly
Excited
Sing

More quotes by 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.
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You can't be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I'm very thankful for that. I'm very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.
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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 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 don't like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.
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.
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Desegregation is a joke.
Nina Simone
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From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
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.
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I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel.
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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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Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
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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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 don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
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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Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.
Nina Simone
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Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I'm feeling good I'm feeling good
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.
Nina Simone