Quotes from Billie Holiday

The difficult I'll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.

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.

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.

The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can't sing.

God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody.

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.

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.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.

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.

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.

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.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.

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

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.