I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
BILLIE HOLIDAYIf I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
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A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
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God bless the child that’s got his own.
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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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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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If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
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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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Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
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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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Them 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.
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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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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.
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I can only sing songs my way. I don’t know any other way.
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The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
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I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.
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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 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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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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All dope can do for you is kill you… the long hard way. And it can kill the people you love right along with you.
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When you sing, always tell the truth.
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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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And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.
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God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody.
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Don’t be in such a hurry.
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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.
BILLIE HOLIDAY