Quotes by Nina Simone

“You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.”

“Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.”

“Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.”

“The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.”

“You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there's the nagging worry that maybe... you're just no good.”

“Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.”

“We never talked about men or clothes or inconsequential things we got together. It was always Marx, Lenin and revolution - real girls' talk.”

“When the poets rhyme in the summertime/You'll hear melodies in the words”

“Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash/Just who do you think I am?/You raise my taxes, freeze my wages/And send my son to Vietnam/You give me second class houses/And second class schools/Do you think that all ...”

“Well I wish I could be like a bird in the sky/How sweet it would be/If I found I could fly/I'd soar to the sun/And look down at the sea/And I sing 'cause I know/How it feels to be free”

“I wish I could share all the love that's in my heart/Remove all the bars that keep us apart/I wish you could know what it means to be me/Then you'd see and agree/That everyone should be free/But, o...”

“Hound dogs on my trail/School children sitting in jail/Black cat cross my path/I think every day's gonna be my last/Don't tell me, I'll tell you/Me and my people just about due/I've been there so I...”

“Picket lines, school boycotts/They try to say it's a communist plot/All I want is equality/For my sister, my brother, my people, and me”

“What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.”

“This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.”

“It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girl's talk.”

“Often you don't know how truly happy you were then until you look back and realize how much worse things could have been, how if certain things had turned out the slightest bit differently so many ...”