Billie Holiday Quotes

All dope can do for you is kill you... the long hard way. And it can kill the people you love right along with you.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.

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

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.

There`s no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

If I don`t have friends, then I ain`t got nothing.

No two people on earth are alike, and it`s got to be that way in music or it isn`t music.

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

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.

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.

You can`t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you`re working without any real feeling.

Don`t threaten me with love, baby. Let`s just go walking in the rain.

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

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.

I`m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I`ve been.

If I don`t have friends, then I ain`t nothing.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that`s nobody`s business but my own.

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.

Sometimes it`s worse to win a fight than to lose.

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

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

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.

Her education was her search for the truth within herself. She used all of the things that happened in her life and made them work for her in her music. - singer/actress Sylvia Syms

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what`s more than enough.

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.

If I`m going to sing like someone else, then I don`t need to sing at all.

Don`t threaten me with love, baby.

People don`t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

I can`t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain`t music, it`s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.