Billie Holiday Quotes

Quotes about:

Feelings Jazz Liberty Love Music Singing Songs

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

Billie Holiday

Motivational, Littles, Impossible

Song: Crazy He Calls Me

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

Billie Holiday

African American, Words Of Wisdom, Black

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.183, Broadway Books

149 Copy quote
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

Real, Mean, Two

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.61, Broadway Books

156 Copy quote
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

Hair, White, Black History

Lady Sings the Blues ch. 11 (1956).

122 Copy quote
When you sing, always tell the truth.

Billie Holiday

Music, Jazz, Telling The Truth

66 Copy quote
If nobody can learn from the past,
then there's no point in raking it up.

Billie Holiday

Past, Learn From The Past, No Point

58 Copy quote
The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing.

Billie Holiday

Music, Feelings, Singing

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.163, Broadway Books

71 Copy quote
God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody.

Billie Holiday

Believe, Blessed

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.219, Broadway Books

68 Copy quote
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

Thinking, Way, Feels

55 Copy quote
If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.

Billie Holiday

Imagination, Individuality, Needs

33 Copy quote
Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.

Billie Holiday

Love, Music, Baby

96 Copy quote
I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.

Billie Holiday

Thinking, Singing, Horns

102 Copy quote
Don't be in such a hurry.

Billie Holiday

Last Words

38 Copy quote
I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.

Billie Holiday

Inspirational, Success, Music

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.212, Broadway Books

70 Copy quote
Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.

Billie Holiday

Adversity, Fighting, Winning

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

69 Copy quote
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.

Billie Holiday

Dope, Play, Long

Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.215, Broadway Books

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

Billie Holiday

Love, Music, Crush

Song: For All We Know

26 Copy quote
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

Body, Littles, Holding On

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

63 Copy quote
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

Fighting, People, Records

record it. 1956 Lady Sings the Blues, with William Duffy.

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

Billie Holiday

Song, Singing, Way

12 Copy quote
I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

Billie Holiday

Hurt, Mind Your Own Business, Liberty

73 Copy quote
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

Wisdom, Children, Papa

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

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

Billie Holiday

Children, God Bless, Bless

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

16 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

46 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

You May Also Like:

Louis Armstrong

Ella Fitzgerald

Billie Holiday

Follow

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

Popular Topics