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

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. 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.
Billie Holiday

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

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
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

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

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

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

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.
Billie Holiday

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.
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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.
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'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
Billie Holiday

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.
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