When you sing, always tell the truth.
BILLIE HOLIDAYWhen you sing, always tell the truth.
BILLIE HOLIDAYThe only reason they’re out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.
BILLIE HOLIDAYIf 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 HOLIDAYA kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
BILLIE HOLIDAYThey 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 HOLIDAYYou 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 HOLIDAYI 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 HOLIDAYPeople don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.
BILLIE HOLIDAYWhen Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
BILLIE HOLIDAYIf nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
BILLIE HOLIDAYThe difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.
BILLIE HOLIDAYSomebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.
BILLIE HOLIDAYThem 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 HOLIDAYI never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
BILLIE HOLIDAYI don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAYI’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.
BILLIE HOLIDAY