Latest Nina Simone Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• 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?

  Nina Simone

  Song, Mean, Cutting

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing... Oh my God! Ooh... Wow... You can see colors through music. Anything!

  Nina Simone

  Color, Loving You, Wow

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.

  Nina Simone

  World, Way, Vibrations

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.

  Nina Simone

  Art, Attention, World

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• 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.

  Nina Simone

  America, Long, Way

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• As far as piano players are concerned, Oscar Peterson is my very favorite. I also like McCoy Tyner. I think that the big jazz stars, both now and in the past...how shall I say it? These guys are as great as Bach, Beethoven; all of them. People don't know it yet. If jazz survives and is put on a pedestal as an art form, the same as classical music has been through the years, a hundred years from now the kids will know who they were, with that kind of respect.

  Nina Simone

  Art, Stars, Kids

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.

  Nina Simone

  People, Done, Records

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• It doesn't matter to me what is going on today because my music encompasses every kind of mood that exists in human beings. That's my stick.

  Nina Simone

  Matter, Today, Sticks

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• The pressure of show business is on all the time and show business is a fickle business. Whatever is popular now - that's all that counts. I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions about what I'm doing and why.

  Nina Simone

  Fickle, Pressure, Conviction

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.

  Nina Simone

  Lucky, Attention, Chance

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• It is difficult to retain your standards with the pressure of trying to make money, which always has its rules...It's hard to walk the tightrope of doing what you think is your best and making money at it.

  Nina Simone

  Thinking, Trying, Pressure

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• I believe the time will come when the whole definition of pop music will change. It will get to the point where a song will not be a good song until it has a high level of creativity in writing and performance. In other words, in order to be popular, songs will have to meet these high standards.

  Nina Simone

  Song, Believe, Writing

  Source: www.musicismysanctuary.com

• I'm a nut for Bach as a composer.

  Nina Simone

  Nuts, Composer

  Source: boscarol.com

• I love to travel to hear different kinds of music.

  Nina Simone

  Different, Kind, Different Kinds

  Source: boscarol.com

• I love the classics but there are many new ideas to be made into reality. I'd rather be concerned with my own thing. There are many masters of classical piano so I'll leave it to them.

  Nina Simone

  Reality, Ideas, Piano

  Source: boscarol.com

• I can't stand loud guitars that make me deaf.

  Nina Simone

  Guitar, Deaf, Loud

  Source: boscarol.com

• Music is the center of my life.

  Nina Simone

  Music Is

  Source: boscarol.com

• Many times I feel different like a different person.

  Nina Simone

  Different, Feels, Persons

  Source: boscarol.com

• My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.

  Nina Simone

  Cat, People, Jargon

  Source: boscarol.com

• I believe in racial memory too. I'm sure I've got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.

  Nina Simone

  Memories, Believe, Blood

  Source: boscarol.com

• Tomorrow, I might be in a different mood and you wouldn't recognize my voice.

  Nina Simone

  Voice, Different, Might

  Source: boscarol.com

• It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.

  Nina Simone

  Communication, People, Feelings

  Source: boscarol.com

• I have a cultured manner of speaking.

  Nina Simone

  Source: boscarol.com

• Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.

  Nina Simone

  Sorrow, Slavery, Funk

  Source: boscarol.com

• Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.

  Nina Simone

  Mind, Harmony, Made

  Source: boscarol.com