Billie Holiday Quotes - Page 2

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.

So I asked him to play "Trav'lin' All Alone." That came closer than anything to the way I felt. And some part of it must have come across. The whole joint quieted down. If someone had dropped a pin, it would have sounded like a bomb. When I finished, everybody in the joint was crying in their beer, and I picked thirty-eight bucks up off the floor. . . . When I showed Mom the money for the rent and told her I had a regular job singing for eighteen dollars a week, she could hardly believe it.

God bless the child that's got his own.

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.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.

If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing.

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do.

There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

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.

And when you're poor, you grow up fast.

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know.

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.

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.

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

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.

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.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

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.

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.

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.

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.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.