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

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

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

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

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


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

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.
Billie Holiday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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