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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

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 Forget Hell Love Privacy Yourself
I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Feeling Improvisation Myself
You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

End Feeling Reality Work Yourself
There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Business Smile Throw Yourself
Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Love Rain Threat Walk
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

Fight Kind People Record Understand Yourself
If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Need Sing
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

Feeling Happiness Sadness Yourself
I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Exercise Myself Night Sing Stand
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

Better Hard Kill Sing Slow Way
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

Goodness Mindset Thinking Yourself
One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Day Head Lyrics Myself Place
If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Friendship Myself
I can only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Known Myself Sing Song Way
Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Enough Known Limitation
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

Hard Kill Love Yourself

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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