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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

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
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Clothes Weird World Yourself
I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hungry Myself Sing
I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Feeling Horn Myself Sing Thinking
The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Basis Feeling Myself Singing
If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Need Sing
When you sing, always tell the truth.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Sing Truth Yourself
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Earth Feeling Imitation Music People Reality Work Yourself
When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Hear Himself Play Singing Word
Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Emotion Feeling Love
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Appearance Hairs Plantation Yourself
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Chance Myself Play Work
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
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
I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Myself Night Sing Song Stand
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 only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Known Myself Sing Song Way
And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Fast Growth Poor Yourself
There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Business Smile Throw Yourself
If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Friendship 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
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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Heart Home Lust Window
Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Marriage Myself Parents Young
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

Body Eat Life Love 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
Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
BILLIE HOLIDAY

Love Rain Threat Walk
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

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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