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 HOLIDAYThere’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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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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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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A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
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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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
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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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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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One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
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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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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 -
If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
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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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY -
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.
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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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The difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.
BILLIE HOLIDAY