Billie Holiday

"Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know whats more than enough."

"... used to win all of Billy [Bergs]s lindy contests. Maybe he couldnt cut the cats at the Savoy in , but he sure could dance. He was like me when I was a kid, in a way, wanting to make it as a dancer and not interested in singing. And he was a switch on me in another way. My singing voice is clear but my speaking voice is husky; Mels speaking voice was clear but his singing voice sounded kind of cloudy and foggy. I tried to tell him he had something different in the way of sound and encouraged him to try singing. He never seemed to want to listen. Maybe a lot of other people told him the same thing, but anyway, I was pleased later to hear he was making it. I always liked his singing, too. No matter what he was doing, he wasnt imitating anybody and he had that beat."

"Billie Holidays voice was the voice of living intensity of soul in the true sense of that greatly abused word. As a human being she was sweet, sour, kind, mean, generous, profane, lovable and impossible, and nobody who knew her expects to see anyone quite like her again."

"Ive been your slave Ever since Ive been your babe But before I be your dog Ill see you in your grave."

"It was a real bitter blues, and on top of all the problems I was having in my own life at the time, I began thinking about what was happening to Lady Day. Brilliant artist, beautiful person—you could pin all the superlatives on her, but there she was, having just been misused again by somebody who didnt give a damn about her, having just been given a hard time by the French public because her voice couldnt do what they wanted it to do on the stage of the Olympia Theatre, there she was, singing in a little club for whatever percentage she could get. I started crying pretty loud. [...] She backed me into a corner and in a cold, dry voice said something that was so powerful, so full of meaning that Ill never forget it. She said "No matter what the motherf------- do to you, never let em see you cry." Thats the kind of person she was—always concerned about somebody else, always trying to protest the people she cared about. The tragedy was that she couldnt protect herself."

"Them thats got shall get Them thats not shall lose So the Bible said and it still is news Mama may have, Papa may have But God bless the child thats got his own Thats got his own."

"Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn’t treat them, and then caught them, prosecuted them for not paying their taxes, and then sent them to jail. If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs. The jails are full and the problem is getting worse every day."

"Im always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where Ive been."

"No two people on earth are alike, and its got to be that way in music or it isnt music."

"I aint good looking And my hair aint curls But my mother she give me something Its going to carry me through this world."

"Who love my man, Im a liar if I say I dont But Ill quit my man, Im a liar if I say I wont."

"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."