Billie Holiday

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

When you sing, always tell the truth.

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.

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

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

Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn’t have a choice.

Musicians should never forget we’re blessed. We have a special gift that people enjoy through us.

I’m more careful about my hands than about what I eat and most anything else, because my hands have been my living. My hands have been able to help me learn. My hands have taken me around the world. So I’m very proud of my hands.

Judy Garland was the singer I most wanted to sound like then, not to copy, but to get some of her soul and purity. A wonderful young voice.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

I don’t compose. I assemble materials.

You never master the instrument. You always just strive to get better.

I don’t get jazz. It always sounds like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.

Jazz is a work in progress. We’ll be defining traditions in Jazz for 200-300 years.

The true beauty of music is that it connects people.

And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself. You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get into.

After two takes you’re imitating yourself.

The other day I came across a recording I made of a night at my apartment when I was living with Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan had been around earlier and we were all passing around the guitar. Whenever it came to my turn I would run into the kitchen and say I’d left the coffee on the stove or something. Shyness. Scared to perform.