Famous Quotes & Sayings

Nina Simone

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.

Nina Simone

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

Nina Simone

It's time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.

Nina Simone

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

Nina Simone

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band's lead singer, Eric Burdon. "So you're the honky," she said, "who stole my song and got a hit out of it?

Nina Simone

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

Nina Simone

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

Nina Simone

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

Mike Tyson

I just want to try everything. I want to see how good I can be, the best I can be at what I'm doing. I want to do everything. You know? I want to be in a musical. I want to do everything. I want to try and sing.

Miguel de Cervantes

Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.

John Waters

I don't like heroin, unless you're a jazz musician and then you have to be on it because jazz is the sound of heroin.

Nile Rodgers

Trust me, the only real way to understand 'Chic' is in highfalutin terms. Our chord progressions were based on European modal melodies. I made those early 'Chic' records to impress my jazz friends.

Nat King Cole

Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free.

Nat King Cole

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

Nat King Cole

I'm a musician at heart. I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

Nas

Let the music diffuse all the tension.

Miranda Lambert

I don't know where 'bro-country' came from or what it really means, but a lot of those guys are my buddies and I support their music, within country there are lots of styles: stone-cold country, like Brandy Clark, and there's Florida Georgia Line with what they do, which is completely different and bringing a whole new audience. There's room for everyone.

Miranda Lambert

Long intros are cool because there's a little bit of anticipation, you know?

Johnny Griffin

Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions.

Johnny Mercer

Day in, day out. That same old voodoo follows me about.

Johnny Mercer

You must have been a beautiful baby, 'Cos baby just look at you now.

Johnny Mercer

Skylark Have you anything to say to me? Won't you tell me where my love can be?

Johnny Mercer

She's nobody's fool so I'm playing it cool as can be. I'll give it a whirl but I ain't for no girl catching me.

Johnny Marr

The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.

John Ruskin

Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of a bag of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer.

John Ruskin

Not without design does God write the music of our lives.

John Ruskin

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

Megalyn Echikunwoke

If someone said, "Here, you have your pick, you can do either a musical, Moulin Rouge type of movie, where you sing and dance, or an action movie, or a Shakespearian or Elizabethan movie," I would definitely love to do a movie that was based on a musical, where I would get to sing, dance and act, all at the same time.

Maya Angelou

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

Max Beerbohm

She was one of those people who said I don't know anything about music, but I know what I like.

Matisyahu

My music is not really about one ideology. It's not about one truth.

Mary Timony

I'm much more of a musician than a poet. I just feel much more confident about my musical abilities.

Mary Timony

I feel really different from other musicians.