Nina Simone Quotes

I flirt all the time. I like men! I don’t think we can do without them.

You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.

There’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved.

We have ordered things so long in a certain way, we are numb. Nobody dares question it. This is what is wrong, symbolically, with America.

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

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.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it

Desegregation is a joke.

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

I’m a real rebel with a cause.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of 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.

My daughter is in more competition with me. I never wanted to be bigger than my mother or to challenge her.