Author Profile
Nina Simone
1933 – 2003 • American • Musician
40
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 40 quotesI 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
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
I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.— Nina Simone
My daughter is in more competition with me. I never wanted to be bigger than my mother or to challenge her.— Nina Simone
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
I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs.— Nina Simone
I want to shake people up so bad, that when they leave a nightclub where I've performed, I just want them to be to pieces.— Nina Simone
I think that the artists who don't get involved in preaching messages probably are happier - but you see, I have to live with Nina, and that is very difficult.— Nina Simone
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
What I was interested in was conveying an emotional message, which means using everything you've got inside you sometimes to barely make a note, or if you have to strain to sing, you sing.— Nina Simone
There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.— Nina Simone