If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
BILLIE HOLIDAYAnd when you’re poor, you grow up fast.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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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 -
I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
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 -
Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
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 -
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 -
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
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 -
The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
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 -
Don’t be in such a hurry.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
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 -
If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
BILLIE HOLIDAY