Nina Simone

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

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.

Sometimes I sound like gravel and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream.

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

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

I only knew classical music, which to me was the only true music. The only way I could survive at the bar was to mix the classical music with popular songs, and that meant I had to sing. What happened was that I discovered I had a voice plus the talent to mix classical music together with more popular songs, which at the time I detested.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

Once you have been bitten by the Jazz bug, it is not a choice anymore.

Once I could play what I heard inside me, that’s when I was born.

What I learned the most from Prince was putting art first, being creatively ambitious, and putting creativity at the forefront of what I do.

Jazz music just resonates with the frequency of me.

While many attempts have been made to define Jazz, what’s the point really. Jazz is to be experienced – period.

The greatest moments of the human spirit may be deduced from the greatest moments in music.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn’t have a choice.

Musically, I love to talk just off the top of my head and that’s what Jazz is all about.

I’ve always wanted a C trumpet on top, to have that same kind of facility without shouting.

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.

All music is beautiful.

You have to sound sad first, then maybe later you can sound good.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.

I really feel like I made it a great record. I really feel good about it. In this day and age to make a record that you say, ‘This is different,’ that’s a tough nut. I did it by accident but it got done. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know how to do it.