Billie Holiday Quotes - Page 2

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

Billie Holiday

Smile, Throwing Up, Damn

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

Billie Holiday

Love, Pregnancy, Turns

10 Copy quote
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

Holiday, Thinking, Two

50 Copy quote
If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing.

Billie Holiday

Friendship, Ifs

13 Copy quote
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

Funny, Marriage, Hilarious

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.13, Broadway Books

47 Copy quote
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

Sick, Church, Very Sad

14 Copy quote
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, Jobs, Believe

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.45, Broadway Books

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

Billie Holiday

Music, Work, Kids

89 Copy quote
I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do.

Billie Holiday

Music, Jazz, Hunger

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.198, Broadway Books

15 Copy quote
And when you're poor, you grow up fast.

Billie Holiday

Growing Up, Poverty, Poor

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.13, Broadway Books

22 Copy quote
God bless the child that's got his own.

Billie Holiday

Children, God Bless, Bless

"God Bless the Child" (song) (1941).

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

Billie Holiday

Change, Music, Hate

24 Copy quote
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

Country, Love You, Recovery

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.220, Broadway Books

9 Copy quote
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

Dope, Thinking, Iron

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (1956). “Lady sings the blues”

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

Billie Holiday

Song, Umpires, One Day

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.108, Broadway Books

16 Copy quote
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.

Billie Holiday

Dope, Long, People

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (1956). “Lady sings the blues”

14 Copy quote
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

Home, Blue, Years

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.70, Broadway Books

15 Copy quote
I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

Billie Holiday

Trying, Armstrong, Young

12 Copy quote
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

Heart, House, Lust

12 Copy quote
The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

Billie Holiday

Fall, Pits, Orchestra

13 Copy quote
When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.

Billie Holiday

Play, Singing, Jazz

13 Copy quote
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

Song, Men, Ducks

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.51, Broadway Books

16 Copy quote
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

New Orleans, Cities, Nylon

11 Copy quote
I never sing a song the same way twice.

Billie Holiday

Song, Way, Jazz

15 Copy quote
I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.

Billie Holiday

Song, Night, Years

Lady Sings the Blues ch. 4 (1956).

9 Copy quote

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Born: April 7, 1915
Died: July 17, 1959
Occupation: Singer
Cite this Page: Citation

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