Billie Holiday Quotes

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.

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.

- Billie Holiday

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.

- Billie Holiday

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.

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

I don't think I missed a single picture Billie Dove ever made. I was crazy for her. I tried to do my hair like her, and eventually, I borrowed her name.

- Billie Holiday

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.

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.

- Billie Holiday

No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

- Billie Holiday

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday

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

- Billie Holiday