One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
BILLIE HOLIDAYI never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.
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I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.
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The only reason they’re out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.
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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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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.
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And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.
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Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
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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.
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I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.
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A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
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Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows.
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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.
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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.
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Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.
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Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.
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You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.
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In this country kings or dukes don’t amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres.
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When you sing, always tell the truth.
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I can only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.
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I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
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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.
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If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
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Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
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Don’t be in such a hurry.
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I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
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If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
BILLIE HOLIDAY