Quotes from Edith Piaf

Death is the beginning of something.

Don't care what people say. Don't give a damn about their laws.

I was hungry. I was cold. But I was also free. Free not to get up in the morning, not to go to bed at night, free to get drunk if I liked, to dream... to hope.

To sing is to bring to life; impossible if the words are mediocre, however good the music.

If God has allowed me to earn so much money, it is because He knows I give it all away.

Tell me what you'd like to hear me sing. I'll sing whatever you like, after which I'll take up a collection, if you don't mind.

My conservatory is in the streets. My intelligence is instinct.

Every damn fool thing you do in this life you pay for.

All I've done all my life is disobey.

I think you have to pay for love with bitter tears.

I don't lie; I improve on my life.

If God has allowed me to earn so much money, it is because He knows I give it all away.

I want to make people cry even when they don't understand my words.

As far as I'm concerned, love means fighting, big fat lies, and a couple of slaps across the face.

When he takes me in his arms, and speaks to me softly, I see the world through rose-colored glasses.

Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. I'm no longer on earth.

I want to die young. I think it's awful to get old, and sickness is ugly.

I'd like to see one person - just one - who would own up to having been a coward.

Money? How did I lose it? I never did lose it. I just never knew where it went.

People say that I could sing the phone book and make it sound good.

To be successful in my native France, where people speak the same language and understand me, is nothing.

I don't want to die an old lady.

I've always wanted to sing, just as I've always known that one day I would have my own niche in the annals of song. It was a feeling I had.

For me, sleeping is a waste of time. I'm afraid to sleep. It's a form of death.