99 Quotes by Billie Holiday

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.

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

The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

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