Billie Holiday

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

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

I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.

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.

When you sing, always tell the truth.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

If you have something in your life worth celebrating, you can put it in a blues song.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.

I got a chance to listen to and watch Thelonious Monk and his quartet play two shows a night, for six weeks. It was a great education. There was my university, man.

When you are studying Jazz best thing to do is listen to records and live music as much you can and absorb everything.

I love it when people hear my music but can’t figure out what instrument I’m playing.

Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.

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

I have younger friends who don’t work and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

It’s about getting the sound to flow from your body and allowing that sound to get to the piano.

When you hear my lyrics, you hear the shots that I throw at people. I throw shots because I always been the underdog. I got rejected so many times, and I say it in my lyrics constantly.

I was probably six years old when I first sang before an audience.

There’s a way of playing safe and then there’s where you create something you haven’t created before.

For most dates I was paid the sum of $1 per hr and they always tipped me at the end of the night.

I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later.