If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
BILLIE HOLIDAYDon’t be in such a hurry.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.
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Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
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If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
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I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.
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Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
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One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
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When you sing, always tell the truth.
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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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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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The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
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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.
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I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.
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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.
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I never sing a song the same way twice.
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Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
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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.
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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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I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
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I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.
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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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When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
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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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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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If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
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People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.
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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