Billie Holiday Short Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
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 wont.

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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