Billie Holiday Quotes

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

• People don’t understand the sort of fight it takes to record what you want, to record the way you want to record it.

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Mama may have, papa may have, But God bless the child that’s got his own! That’s got his own.

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Life, Uncategorized

  Tags in Eat, Little

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Copy

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think, Fuel

• There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Business

• Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Win, Worse

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Enough

• 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

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Songs

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Kind

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Day, Song

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Earth

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Kids

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Love

• 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

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Forget

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Copy

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Like, Sing, Writing

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

  Billie Holiday

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Friends

Billie Holiday (28)

Birth:	7th April, 1915
Death:	17th July, 1959
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Actress, Lyricist, Singer

About

Billie Holiday was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was an American jazz singer, songwriter, and actress. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.

Related Authors

• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Izabella Scorupco
• Vanessa Brown
• Halle Berry
• Naya Rivera
• Jessica Hahn
• Patsy Kelly
• Parminder Nagra
• Megan Mullally
• Whitney Houston

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 15th January

Births

• 1850 - Sofia Kovalevskaya
• 1844 - Cole Younger
• 1913 - Lloyd Vernet Bridges Jr.
• 1981 - Pitbull
• 1842 - Mary MacKillop

Deaths

• 1983 - Meyer Lansky
• 1947 - Victor Robinson
• 1919 - Rosa Luxemburg
• 1987 - Ray Bolger
• 1982 - Red Smith