Nina Simone

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

“I'll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.”

“An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.”

“You've got to learn to leave the table when love's no longer being served.”

“It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good.”

“I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.”

“I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.”

“Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.”

“Talent is a burden, not a joy. I am not speaking from a moral standpoint; I am speaking from experience.”

“Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.”

“I have to constantly re-identify myself to myself, reactivate my own standards, my own convictions.”

“There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.”

“To be young, gifted and black, Oh what a lovely precious dream.”

“How can you be an artist and not reflect the times? That's all I want to say about that.”

“This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.”

“I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor.”