The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.
BILLIE HOLIDAYIf nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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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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Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.
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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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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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Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.
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Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.
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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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I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.
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The difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.
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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 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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If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.
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When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
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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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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