Nina Simone
American singer-songwriter (1933–2003)
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- Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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'm a real rebel with a cause.
- There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
- 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.
- From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.
- I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping.
- I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.
- To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.
- Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.
- Desegregation is a joke.
- "Jazz is a white term to define Black people. My music is Black classical music."