139 Quotes by Nina Simone

I have to be composed; I have to be poised. I have to remember what my first piano teacher told me: 'You do not touch that piano until you are ready and until they are ready to listen to you.

You get racism crossing the street; it's in the very fabric of American society.

All the time, there was the weight of my community's expectations on my shoulders.

I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs.