Nina Simone Quotes
"I'm a real rebel with a cause."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Cause)
"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
(Related: Love, Music, First, First love, Man, Now, Sea, Want, Water)
"I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Day)
"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."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Being, states, United, Will, World)
"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
(Related: People, Poor)
"I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Music, America, Protest)
"I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Music, Rap)
"From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Beginning, Man, Woman)
"Desegregation is a joke."
- Nina Simone
"Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Music, People, Jazz)
"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
(Related: Music, Excellence, Freedom, Now, Years)
"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
(Related: Music, People, Choices)
"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."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Life, Music, World)
"Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking."
- Nina Simone
(Related: America, Slavery, Thinking)
"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."
- Nina Simone
(Related: Hurt, Prejudice, Rest, Self, Thinking)
"There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were."
- Nina Simone
(Related: People, Heroes)
"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
(Related: Music, People, Jazz, Play)
"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
(Related: Kiss, Dream, Feet, May)