Billie Holiday Quotes

I'm in a hallowed league of artists. Whether it's Billie Holiday or Rakim or Jimmy Hendrix or ... I don't know, MGMT, we're all blessed to be able to create. It's a lineage that extends a long time. And to be able to be active in it and have made a difference in it, it's humbling. To know I had a place in all of this; that's the rewarding part. ~ Q-Tip

When Billie Holiday sings a song, I hear the song, but I always hear her and her truth. ~ Tom Wopat

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn ... What comes out is what I feel. ~ Billie Holiday

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words. ~ Billie Holiday

Beyond the table, there is an altar, with candles lit for Billie Holiday and Willa Carter and Hypatia and Patsy Cline. Next to it, an old podium that once held a Bible, on which we have repurposed an old chemistry handbook as the Book of Lilith. In its pages is our own liturgical calendar: Saint Clementine and All Wayfarers; Saints Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt, observed in the summer with blueberries to symbolize the sapphire ring; the Vigil of Saint Juliette, complete with mints and dark chocolate; Feast of the Poets, during which Mary Oliver is recited over beds of lettuce, Kay Ryan over a dish of vinegar and oil, Audre Lorde over cucumbers, Elizabeth Bishop over some carrots; The Exaltation of Patricia Highsmith, celebrated with escargots boiling in butter and garlic and cliffhangers recited by an autumn fire; the Ascension of Frida Khalo with self-portraits and costumes; the Presentation of Shirley Jackson, a winter holiday started at dawn and ended at dusk with a gambling game played with lost milk teeth and stones. Some of them with their own books; the major and minor arcana of our little religion. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

In this country kings or dukes don't amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres. ~ Billie Holiday

My great hero is Billie Holiday, and I've always wanted to do an album of standards with a piano-led quartet. ~ Tim Curry

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

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

I was trying to do Billie Holiday, because she was the voice to be heard at that time. ~ Ruth Brown

The first time I heard a Billie Holiday record, I thought, 'What's so great about Billie Holiday?' ~ Diana Ross

I'd love to see a Nirvana biopic. I loved them when I was younger. I really like jazz music, so I'd like to see a Billie Holiday biopic - she was a fascinating woman. ~ Antonia Thomas

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

And when we pressed our heads to each other's hearts how did we not hear Carmen McRae singing? In Angela's fisted hands, Billie Holiday staggered past us and we didn't know her name. Nina Simone told us how beautiful we were and we didn't hear her voice. ~ Jacqueline Woodson

And in the background of Early's story was her voice. Her soul. Her sadness and longing. Because when it's raining, it's always Billie Holiday. p. 81 ~ Clare Vanderpool

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

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

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

God Bless The Child"

Them that's got shall have
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible says and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own

Yes the strong get smart
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets don't ever make the grade
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own

Money, you've got lots of friends
They're crowding around your door
But when you're gone and spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give crusts of bread and such
You can help yourself, but don't take too much
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own

Money you've got lots of friends
They're crowding around your door
But when you're gone and spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give crusts of bread and such
You can help yourself, but don't take too much
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own

Here just don't worry about nothing cause he's got his own
Yes, he's got his own ~ Billie Holiday

What I loved with Billie Holiday is she had a good way of parlaying the sorrow with a positive musical twist. ~ Rebecca Ferguson

Just like that. Gone forever. They will not grow old together. They will never live on a beach by the sea, their hair turned white, dancing in a living room to Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. They will not enter a New York club at midnight and show the poor hip-hop fools how to dance. They will not chuckle together over the endless folly of the world, its vanities and stupid ambitions. They will not hug each other in any chilly New York dawn.
Oh, Mary Lou.
My baby.
My love. ~ Pete Hamill

The kid at 9 or 10 who knows who Billie Holiday is ... that's the coolest thing ever. ~ Robbie Robertson

I had no desire to become a singer until I heard Billie Holiday. The first time I heard her on a record, it was a revelation. She sounded like a woman singing about herself. ~ Susannah McCorkle

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. ~ Billie Holiday

The beauty of Billie Holiday is that she gave every singer after her the license to interpret and perform music in ways that were unique to each of us. Her uniqueness was very much a part of the way she sang the songs, the story she wanted to tell through the songs. I didn't really have a full understanding of Billie until I left home
until I'd lived a little, shall we say. At different seasons of my life, when I'd sing her songs or listen to her albums, I'd hear things I didn't hear before. Wherever you are in life, you'll hear different things in her songs. ~ Dianne Reeves

I was a 12 year old kid in Northern Idaho listening to Billie Holiday and Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole. This whole genre of music is a part of who I am. ~ Cheyenne Jackson

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do. ~ Billie Holiday

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

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain. ~ 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. And it can kill the people you love right along with you. ~ Billie Holiday

Everyones got to be different. You can't copy anybody and end up with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. And without feeling, whatever you do amounts to nothing. ~ Billie Holiday

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

I have the ability to sing with emotion and feeling, but if you say I sound like Billie Holiday, that's cool. Let's look at who Billie was: she was this person, this singer, this beautiful diva who could move the audience with the slightest gesture of her hand. ~ Erykah Badu

And if Mozart is for Sundays, who do you listen to the rest of the week?"
"Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays. And Glenn Miller on Fridays, unless it's raining. If it's raining, it's always Billie Holiday."
"What about Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday?" I asked.
"Those days are quiet. Unless it's raining. ~ Clare Vanderpool

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

Probably to me the greatest singer, female voice, is Billie Holiday. And one of the most moving for me, I don't know why - maybe it's nostalgia, maybe because my life is one of constant partying, whatever. ~ Wole Soyinka

Early mornings were given over to Bartok and Schoenberg. Midmorning I treated myself to the vocals of Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, Nat Cole, Louis Jordan and Bull Moose Jackson. A piroshki from the Russian delicatessen next door was lunch and then the giants of bebop flipped through the air. Charlie Parker and Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan and Al Haig and Howard McGhee. Blues belonged to late afternoons and the singers' lyrics of lost love spoke to my solitude. ~ Maya Angelou

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

Clara said that Billie Holiday woke up crying. Clara said that if you sing the blues, you know that if you can't make friends with grief, you've got to at least make way for it. ~ Amy Bloom

If I don't have friends, then I ain't nothing. ~ Billie Holiday

I never sing a song the same way twice. ~ Billie Holiday

I like singers like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. ~ Andy Morris

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

Was her whole life going to be like this now, avoiding certain songs or music that reminded her of her mistakes? Billie Holiday made her think of Eric Dalton; Iron & Wine was Jeremiah; and if things didn't work out with Kara, she'd never be able to listen to Bob Dylan again. By the time she reached her twenties, she'd be a huge, lumbering mass of musical baggage. ~ Cecily Von Ziegesar

I feel like it's really kind of a sit-down album, much in the same way I imagine Billie Holiday or someone sitting down in the studio and singing. ~ Lucinda Williams

My Man

It cost me a lot
But there's one thing that I've got
It's my man
It's my man

Cold or wet
Tired, you bet
All of this I'll soon forget
With my man

He's not much on looks
He's no hero out of books
But I love him
Yes, I love him

Two or three girls
Has he
That he likes as well as me
But I love him

I don't know why I should
He isn't true
He beats me, too
What can I do?

Oh, my man, I love him so
He'll never know
All my life is just a spare
But I don't care
When he takes me in his arms
The world is bright
All right

What's the difference if I say
I'll go away
When I know I'll come back
On my knees someday

For whatever my man is
I'm his forevermore ~ 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

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. ~ Billie Holiday

If nobody can learn from the past,
then there's no point in raking it up. ~ Billie Holiday

When Billie Holiday came15 to London in the 1950s, she was amazed. They "are civilized about it and they have no narcotics problem at all," she explained. "One day America is going to smarten up and do the ~ Johann Hari

When I was younger, I'd go to the Museum of Television and Radio in New York and watch this beautiful clip of Billie Holiday playing with a bassist, a pianist and Gerry Mulligan, who was a friend of mine, on baritone sax. At one point, she looks over at Gerry, and they just smile. When those moments happen, it's just lovely. ~ Patti Scialfa

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel. ~ Billie Holiday

By the way, Reb, about the singing. What gives? Walt Whitman sang the body electric. Billie Holiday sang the blues. You sang ... everything. You could sing the phone book. I would call and say how are you feeling, and you'd answer, The old gray rabbi, ain't what he used to be ... ~ Mitch Albom

If I hear a record once, I usually never listen to it again. I rarely listen to music - unless it's Billie Holiday. ~ Barbra Streisand

It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. ~ Frank Sinatra

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. ~ 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

In general, though, women aren't really allowed to be kick-ass. It's like the famous distinction between art and craft: Art, and wildness, and pushing against the edges, is a male thing. Craft, and control, and polish, is for women. Culturally we don't allow women to be as free as they would like, because that is frightening. We either shun those women or deem them crazy. Female singers who push too much, and too hard, don't tend to last very long. They're jags, bolts, comets: Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday. But being that woman who pushes the boundaries means you also bring in less desirable aspects of yourself. At the end of the day, women are expected to hold up the world, not annihilate it. That's why Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill is so great. The term girl power was coined by the Riot Grrl movement that Kathleen spearheaded in the 1990s. Girl power: a phrase that would later be co-opted by the Spice Girls, a group put together by men, each Spice Girl branded with a different personality, polished and stylized to be made marketable as a faux female type. Coco was one of the few girls on the playground who had never heard of them, and that's its own form of girl power, saying no to female marketing! ~ Kim Gordon

I loved Billie Holiday more than any other person other than myself on the stage. Yeah, I do. ~ Abbey Lincoln

There is something about a woman,' said comedian and activist Dick Gregory. "If you look at all the suffering that black folks went through, not one black man would dare to sing 'Mississippi Goddamn.' Not one black man would say what Billie Holiday did about being lynched [in "Strange Fruit"]-they wasn't lynching women, they was lynching men, but it was women that talked about it, and nobody told them to talk about it. No manager going to tell you to talk about this, it's just something inside them. ~ Alan Light

I really do love bluesy-jazzy music, so I love Etta James, B.B. King and Billie Holiday. I love that they have soul in their voices - I think that's something important is having. ~ Bridgit Mendler

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

And when you're poor, you grow up fast. ~ Billie Holiday

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

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band. ~ Patti Smith

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today. ~ Tony Bennett

He died at forty-two.

I was there to collect his talent.

I was there at the hospital deathbed of my beloved Billie Holiday, just forty-four, her liver destroyed by drinking; I was there inside the hotel room of Charlie Parker, my singular jazz saxophonist, who died in his midthirties, but whose body was so ravaged by drugs the coroners thought he was sixty.

Tommy Dorsey, the bandleader, choked in his sleep when he was fifty-one, too deep in pills to awaken. Johnny Allen Hendrix (you called him Jimi) swallowed a handful of barbiturates and expired. He was twenty-seven.

It is not new, this idea that a purer art awaits you in a substance. But it is naive. I existed before the first grapes were fermented. Before the first whiskey was distilled. Be it opium or absinthe, marijuana or heroin, cocaine or ecstasy or whatever will follow, you may alter your state, but you will not alter this truth: I am Music. I am here inside you. Why would I hide behind a powder or a vapor?

Do you think me so petty? ~ Mitch Albom

The only big weapon anyone has against you is that you're human. Fucked-up, a bit. Imperfect, yes. In this, you are like every great human who has ever lived, male and female alike. If you're slutty, well, Mary Wollstonecraft was pretty slutty. If you're needy, my God, Charlotte Brontë's needs could devour a person alive. If you're mean, or self-destructive, or crazy, I assure you, Billie Holiday managed to record 'Strange Fruit' while being spectacularly self-destructive, and Sylvia Plath wrote Ariel while being both crazy and very, very mean. The world is still better with those works in it. Humanity is still lucky that those particular women existed, and that, despite their deep flaws and abudance of raw humanity, they stood up and said what they had to say. ~ Sady Doyle

I liked old time music but what i meant by that was the period from the 1930s through the 60s, nothing before and little after.
Performers like fats waller, Sinatra, billie holiday, louis armstrong, rosemary clooney, ella, sammy Davis Jr, dean martin ... If the lyrics weren't stupid. Words were important. ~ Jeffery Deaver

I've made my own music, and the way I've always described it is Peggy Lee with an electric guitar, or Billie Holiday with some PJ Harvey in there. ~ Evan Rachel Wood

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

With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years. ~ Frank Sinatra

Them that's got shall get, Them that's not shall lose. So the Bible says, And it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that's got his own. ~ 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

You've got to have something to eat ~ Billie Holiday

I love oldies just kind of sweet, slinky, Fifties music. The slow stuff. And Billie Holiday. ~ Nastassja Kinski

I think O.J. protests too much. Not only did he say he didn't carve the holiday turkey, but he was in the back yard practicing his golf swing the whole time. ~ David Letterman

I remember being banned from other houses as a younger child during the winter holiday season; I was the only one who didn't believe in Santa Claus, and I was ruining everyone's Christmas. ~ Jami Attenberg

It's so obvious that you're gonna ask a good looking dude to be with you for the rest of your holiday while you only know his name for like 2 hours, 32 minutes, 12 seconds."
"Trisha! Being mean is my job! June, you're so predictable, like, it's not a shock for us if you're gonna ask a good looking dude to be with you for the rest of your holiday while you only know his name for like 2 hours, 33 minutes, 2 seconds. ~ Rea Lidde

She allowed herself to relax and enjoy the wave of applause breaking over them. Marta glanced at her mother, who had tears running down her face, but her smile was the happy one Marta hadn't seen in a long time. She no longer looked drawn and sad, but the pretty Mutti her Vati had adored.
A hand brushed her head. But when she turned to look, no one stood close to that side of her. But she caught a whiff of a familiar scent, cigars- and-Vati smell, and knew in her heart her father had come to listen to her sing. ~ Debra Holland

As Kylie buried her head on the camp leader's shoulder, she heard Burnett scold, "I thought I told you to wait at the camp."
Kylie felt Holiday tense at the reprimand, and then she raised her head. "And I thought you knew I don't follow anyone's orders."
"Does anyone listen to me around here?" Burnett asked, his frustration making his tone sound almost comical.
"Obviously not," one of the FRU agents said, and chuckled. ~ C.C. Hunter

Her boys were growing up, too. William would start nursery school in January of 1987 at four and a half. The most exciting part for William was the uniform, "which he is thrilled to bits about, especially as Harry is very envious of his big brother!" The next year would find Diana and Charles in Portugal, Spain, and Germany. "It never stops and it's certainly no holiday package tour!" How true. I'd seen that for myself in Washington.
I had been thrilled to catch a television documentary on the royal couple and had said so in my letter. Diana wrote, "An awful lot of money was raised for very worthy causes so that made the intrusion much more worthwhile!" This comment exemplified the conflict Diana faced between her desire for privacy and her desire to do good. ~ Mary Robertson

It's really just taking action - whether that's approaching someone you're intimidated by or deciding to finally crack a book on a subject you need to learn. ~ Ryan Holiday

On Christmas morning, Rebecca lost her moral virginity, her sense of humor - and her two best friends. But, other than that, it was a hell of a holiday. ~ Ellen Emerson White

Documenting trips makes them that much richer. I stick in train tickets and business cards from restaurants. It makes the whole experience poetic, describing the sights, smells and sounds around me. It means I can relive the holiday years later. ~ Hayley Atwell

From the gardener's point of view, November can be the worst month to be faced: Nature is winding things down, the air is cold, skies are gray, but usually the final mark of punctuation to the year as yet to arrive - the snow; snow that covers all in the garden and marks a mind-set for the end of a year's activity. There is little to do outside except to wait for longer days in the new year and the joys of coming holidays. ~ H. Peter Loewer

Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don't control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. ~ Ryan Holiday

With all of the holiday cheer in the air, it's easy to overlook the ingredients in the foods. Ingredients such as salt, sugar, and fat - all of which leads to diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, strokes, heart disease, and cancer. ~ Lee Haney

But when I sat listening with the other Aikido students and teachers on the mat at the Kumano Juku Dojo, all of us dripping with sweat and focused intently on the practice of Aikido in the here and now, the Floating Bridge of Heaven did not feel like an abstract reference to a story of the past. It was a vivid invitation to venture into the world of the spirit, and to integrate that sacred spirit of creativity into all of our actions. It was a compelling reminder that to O-Sensei, and by extension to all sincere students of his art, Aikido was far more than physical technique. ~ Linda Holiday

I do talk a lot - far more than my husband - but I'm not good at talking to a lot of people. I either talk a lot of rubbish - which I'm sure I do a lot of the time anyway - or I stare at the soup. I'm no good at social presentation. ~ Billie Whitelaw

I thought about the times we'd had in his small garret above Greville's darkroom. And I didn't feel anything. It's strange how strong emotions can be so easily diminished as your life continues; how deepest intimacies become commonplace half-recalled memories-- such as an exotic holiday you once went on, or a cocktail party where you drank far too much, or winning a race at the school sports day. Nothing stirs anymore. ~ William Boyd

Yes. I'm going to take a holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm going to ask you to take a walk with me. ~ Charles Dickens

Where one person sees a crisis, another can see opportunity. Where one is blinded by success, another sees reality with ruthless objectivity. Where one loses control of emotions, another can remain calm. Desperation, despair, fear, powerlessness - these reactions are functions of our perceptions. You must realize: Nothing makes us feel this way; we choose to give in to such feelings. Or, like Rockefeller, choose not to. And it is precisely at this divergence - between how Rockefeller perceived his environment and how the rest of the world typically does - that his nearly incomprehensible success was born. ~ Ryan Holiday

The best gift you can open this Christmas season is your own heart. ~ Toni Sorenson

I have published in 'The New Yorker,' 'Holiday,' 'Life,' 'Mademoiselle,' 'American Heritage,' 'Horizon,' 'The Ladies Home Journal,' 'The Kenyon Review,' 'The Sewanee Review,' 'Poetry,' 'Botteghe Oscure,' the 'Atlantic Monthly,' 'Harper's.' ~ Paul Engle

Could be a cold night so I guess I'll start a fire."
"A fire? Have you got wood?"
A curve played at the corner of his mouth. "Oh, yeah. I got wood."
The door slammed before she realized what she'd said. ~ Tracy Brogan

Just because I get emo sometimes doesn't mean I have to sit alone, in the literal dark, on the first day of holiday break. That's a little too macabre, even for me. ~ Lauren Shippen