Billie Holiday Quotes: top 60 famous quotes about Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Billie Holiday quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

Don't be in such a hurry. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

And when you're poor, you grow up fast. — 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

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

Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows. — Billie Holiday

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. — Billie Holiday

When I first studied Billie Holiday's life story years ago, I admit that I was quite judgmental. — Rebecca Ferguson

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

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

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

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

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

I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era. — Bob Iger

God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody. — Billie Holiday

I can only sing songs my way. I don't know any other way. — Billie Holiday

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

My mother used to play nothing but Billie Holiday. — Etta James

I love the idea of having a kid who says, 'Yeah, of course I knew about Billie Holiday and Johnny Cash when I was nine years old.' — Robbie Robertson

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

Billie Holiday I never met, but I love her music. — Nichelle Nichols

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

When you sing, always tell the truth. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

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

I felt just the way Billie Holiday sounded, like I'd cried all I could and it wasn't enough. — Janet Fitch

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

Billie Holiday's voice was the voice of living intensity of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word. — Leonard Feather

Love is like a faucet: it turns on and off. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up. — Billie Holiday

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

I love to sing old Motown songs to myself, or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing. — Siobhan Fahey

I really like Billie Holiday's husky voice, and I'd definitely like to find out more about her. — Michelle Ryan

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

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

New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

I don't see no more Billie Holidays, no more Marvin Gayes, no more Smokey Robinsons. I don't even see no more Nirvanas. — Wyclef Jean

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

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