Billie Holiday Quotes & Sayings

I never sing a song the same way twice. — Billie Holiday

And when you're poor, you grow up fast. — Billie Holiday

Everyones got to be different. You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing. — Billie Holiday

You can be up to your boobies in
white satin, with gardenias in your hair
and no sugar cane for miles, but you
can still be working on a plantation. — Billie Holiday

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough. — Billie Holiday

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose. — Billie Holiday

They think they can make fuel from horse manure - now, I don't know if your car will be able to get 30 miles to the gallon, but it's sure gonna put a stop to siphoning. — Billie Holiday

When you sing, always tell the truth. — Billie Holiday

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel. — Billie Holiday

Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows. — Billie Holiday

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you - and kill you the long, slow, hard way. And it can kill the people you love right along with you. — Billie Holiday

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit. — Billie Holiday

If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing. — Billie Holiday

I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter. — Billie Holiday

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn ... What comes out is what I feel. — Billie Holiday

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. — Billie Holiday

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know. — Billie Holiday

The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to church, being very happy ... it's sort of a mixed up thing. You just have to feel it. — Billie Holiday

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain. — Billie Holiday

Singing songs like 'The Man I Love' or 'Porgy' is no more work than sitting down and eating Chinese roast duck, and I love roast duck. — Billie Holiday

I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been. — Billie Holiday

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words. — Billie Holiday

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all. — Billie Holiday

Them that's got shall get, Them that's not shall lose. So the Bible says, And it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that's got his own. — Billie Holiday

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it. — Billie Holiday

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head. — Billie Holiday

In this country, don't forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There's no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it's the worst kind of hell for those who love you. — Billie Holiday

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old. — Billie Holiday

There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up. — Billie Holiday

You've got to have something to eat, and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave. — Billie Holiday

So I asked him to play "Trav'lin' All Alone." That came closer than anything to the way I felt. And some part of it must have come across. The whole joint quieted down. If someone had dropped a pin, it would have sounded like a bomb. When I finished, everybody in the joint was crying in their beer, and I picked thirty-eight bucks up off the floor ... When I showed Mom the money for the rent and told her I had a regular job singing for eighteen dollars a week, she could hardly believe it. — Billie Holiday

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three. — Billie Holiday

If I don't have friends, then I ain't got nothing. — Billie Holiday

Don't be in such a hurry. — Billie Holiday

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday. — Billie Holiday

The difficult I'll do right now. The impossible will take a little while. — Billie Holiday

New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size. — Billie Holiday

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music. — Billie Holiday

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music. — Billie Holiday

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted. — Billie Holiday

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do. — Billie Holiday

I don't think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life. — Billie Holiday

In this country kings or dukes don't amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres. — Billie Holiday

Love is like a faucet: it turns on and off. — Billie Holiday

I can only sing songs my way. I don't know any other way. — Billie Holiday

God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody. — Billie Holiday

If nobody can learn from the past,
then there's no point in raking it up. — Billie Holiday

The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing. — Billie Holiday

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own. — Billie Holiday