Nina Simone Quotes

To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. And I mean that in every sense.

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.

I didn’t get interested in music. It was a gift from God.

My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.

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

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

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.

Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways – it’s infinite. It’s like God… you know?

From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.

I’m a real rebel with a cause.

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

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day…and I’m feeling good.

I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that’s not what I play. I play black classical music.