139 Quotes by Nina Simone

I want to shake people up so bad, that when they leave a nightclub where I've performed, I just want them to be to pieces.

As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world.

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

The protest years were over, not just for me but for a whole generation, and in music, just like in politics, many of the greatest talents were dead or in exile, and their place was filled by third-rate imitators.

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

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

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.

When I'm on that stage, I assume honor. I assume compensation, and I should.

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