Billie Holiday Quotes

27 Sourced Quotes

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

Billie Holiday
First they hurt me then desert me,
I'm left alone, all alone
There's no house that I can call my home.

Billie Holiday
Hush now, don't explain
You're my joy and pain
My life's yours love
Don't explain.

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

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

Billie Holiday
Money, you've got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much.

Billie Holiday
Love is just like a faucet,
It turns off and on,
And sometimes when you think it's on, baby,
It has turned off and gone.

Billie Holiday
Singing songs like the '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
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've been your slave
Ever since I've been your babe
But before I be your dog
I'll see you in your grave.

Billie Holiday
Who love my man, I'm a liar if I say I don't
But I'll quit my man, I'm a liar if I say I won't.

Billie Holiday
Everyone's 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
Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don't ever make the grade
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own.

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

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
Lord I love my man, tell the world I do
I love my man, tell the world I do
But when he mistreats me
Makes me feel so blue.

Billie Holiday
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaf and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin' in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin' in the poplar trees.

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
If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks the fuck to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. If you think you need stuff to play music or sing, you're crazy. It can fix you so you can't play nothing or sing nothing.

Billie Holiday
Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn't treat them, and then caught them, prosecuted them for not paying their taxes, and then sent them to jail. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs. The jails are full and the problem is getting worse every day.

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

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

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
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
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.

Billie Holiday
Some men like me talkin' happy
Some calls it snappy
Some call me honey
Others think I got money
Some tell me baby you're built for speed
Now if you put that all together
Makes me everything a good man needs.

Billie Holiday