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

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

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

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

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. — Billie Holiday

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

All dope can do for you is kill you the long hard way. and it can kill the people you love right along with you. — Billie Holiday

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

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

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

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

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. — 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

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

If you find a tune and it’s got something to do with you, you don’t have to evolve anything. You just feel it, and when you sing it other people can feel something too. — 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody busIness but by own. — Billie Holiday