Nina Simone Quotes

Don'tcha know that no one alive can always be an angel?
When everything goes wrong, you see some bad
But oh, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

You use up everything you've got trying to give everybody what they want.

The president, LBJ, went on TV to declare 7 April a Day of National Mourning. This was the same man who had ordered thousands of US citizens - black and white - overseas to die in a foreign jungle while he ignored the war at home. Our president was obviously a man of violence. Why shouldn't the rest of us be the same?

Often you don't know how truly happy you were then until you look back and realize how much worse things could have been, how if certain things had turned out the slightest bit differently so many of your favourite people would never have crossed your path and what seemed at the time to be casual meetings and passing acquaintances would never have matured into deep, lifelong friendships. I've criss-crossed the world many times and every big city holds its own treasure-box of memories. I've had lovers from many different countries and I've fallen in love with whole countries, and, in the case of Africa, with a whole continent. People say you should measure yourself by the friends you have, and when I look at mine I'm more than content to be me. Through my life I made a world for myself just as Jimmy said I would, and the best thing of all is that I'm still happy to live in it, after all these years. (Prologue)

"Lilac Wine"

I lost myself on a cool damp night
Gave myself in that misty light
Was hypnotized by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree
I made wine from the lilac tree
Put my heart in its recipe
It makes me see what I want to see...
And be what I want to be
When I think more than I want to think
Do things I never should do
I drink much more that I ought to drink
Because I brings me back you...

Lilac wine is sweet and heady, like my love
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady, like my love
Listen to me... I cannot see clearly
Isn't that she coming to me nearly here?

Lilac wine is sweet and heady where's my love?
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady, where's my love?

Listen to me, why is everything so hazy?
Isn't that she, or am I just going crazy, dear?

Lilac Wine, I feel unready for my love...

I wish I could share all the love that's in my heart/Remove all the bars that keep us apart/I wish you could know what it means to be me/Then you'd see and agree/That everyone should be free/But, oh, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good/Oh, Lord, please, don't let me be misunderstood

You see, the music always goes to my head. So the more I play, the less I can relax.

I'll tell you what Freedom is to me. No fear.

I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions about what I'm doing and why.

Ain't Got No/i Got Life

I ain't got no home, ain't got no shoes
Ain't got no money, ain't got no class
Ain't got no skirts, ain't got no sweater
Ain't got no perfume, ain't got no beer
Ain't got no man

Ain't got no mother, ain't got no culture
Ain't got no friends, ain't got no schooling
Ain't got no love, ain't got no name
Ain't got no ticket, ain't got no token
Ain't got no God

Then what have I got
Why am I alive anyway?
Yeah, what have I got
Nobody can take away

Got my hair, got my head
Got my brains, got my ears
Got my eyes, got my nose
Got my mouth, I got my smile

I got my tongue, got my chin
Got my neck, got my boobs
Got my heart, got my soul
Got my back, I got my sex

I got my arms, got my hands
Got my fingers, got my legs
Got my feet, got my toes
Got my liver, got my blood

I've got life
I've got my freedom
I've got life

I've got life
And I'm gonna keep it
I've got life
And nobody's gonna take it away

It was at this time, in the mid-sixties, that I first began to feel the power and spirituality I could connect with when I played in front of an audience. I'd been performing for ten years, but it was only at this time that I felt a kind of state of grace come upon me on those occasions when everything fell into place. At such times I would give a concert that everyone who witnessed it would remember for years, and they would go home afterwards knowing that something very special had happened. Those moments are very difficult for a performer to explain. It's like being transported in church; something descends upon you and you are gone, taken away by a spirit that is outside of you...That's what I learned about performing - that it was real, and I had the ability to make people feel on a deep level. It's difficult to describe because it's not something you can analyse; to get near what it's about you have to play it. And when you've caught it, when you've got the audience hooked, you always know because it's like electricity hanging in the air. I began to feel it happening and it seemed to me like mass hypnosis - like I was hypnotizing an entire audience to feel a certain way. I was the toreador mesmerizing this bull and I could turn around and walk away, turning my back on this huge animal which I knew would do nothing because I had it under my complete control. And, like they did with the toreadors, people came to see me because they knew I was playing close to the edge and one day I might fail. This was how I got my reputation as a live performer, because I went out from the mid-sixties onwards determined to get every audience to enjoy my concerts the way I wanted them to, and if they resisted at first I had all the tricks to bewitch them with.

Having as little to do with human beings as possible - in some weird way, I'm at peace.

I came to expect despair every time I set foot in my own country, and I was never disappointed.

It is an artist's duty to reflect the times.

Picket lines, school boycotts/They try to say it's a communist plot/All I want is equality/For my sister, my brother, my people, and me