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Quotes from Lady Sings the Blues — Billie Holiday

1915–1959 United States

← All quotes by Billie Holiday

9 quotes

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

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

I've been told that nobody sings the word "hunger" like I do. Or the word "love."

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

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

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

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

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

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.

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

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. Everything I am and everything I want out of life goes smack back to that.

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

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.

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

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.

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you’re out of your mind. There are more kicks the fuck to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. If you think you need stuff to play music or sing, you’re crazy. It can fix you so you can’t play nothing or sing nothing.

Lady Sings the Blues (1956)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Billie Holiday (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.