I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.
BILLIE HOLIDAYDope 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.
More Billie Holiday Quotes
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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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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.
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Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.
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I never sing a song the same way twice.
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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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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’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.
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There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.
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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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If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up.
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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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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’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.
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When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.
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I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.
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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.
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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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In this country kings or dukes don’t amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres.
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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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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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Don’t be in such a hurry.
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One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
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I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.
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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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The only reason they’re out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.
BILLIE HOLIDAY