99 Quotes by Billie Holiday

Don’t be in such a hurry.

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.

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

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.

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

And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.

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

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.