Billie Holiday

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

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.

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

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.

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

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was 6 years old.

You can start any Monty Python routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.

I’d say I’m a bit of a fatalist but not as much as I was. I used to be like “whatever happens happens” and have that innate fatalistic outlook. But I think it’s more about what you are thinking in your own mind that is the most powerful aspect of controlling your own life.

I’ve always learned how to deal with my problems through my words, through my education, and through my intelligence, which I think is important and the best way to deal with an issue.

Oh God, don’t make me come across as a moaner. I think it’s unacceptable to moan about anything when you’re lucky enough to do what I do. What I’m trying to say is I’m more settled now. The thirties have calmed me down. I know who my real friends are, I know what I want to do. In your twenties, you just do everything. It’s just overload all the time. In the thirties, you learn that it’s OK to go to bed early if you want.

I feel like there’s a race being run in Los Angeles for some unattainable goal – to be the best, the skinniest, the most beautiful. I just admit that that’s what I’ll never be.

The craziest thing I’ve ever done to get a guy’s attention? I admit I stalked someone. I showed up at a restaurant where I knew the guy worked, and we were actually good friends and had lost touch, and I pretended that I didn’t know he worked there. And then ran into him and, “Oh my God, you work here? I had no idea.” It’s the most manipulative thing I’ve done in my entire life, but it all worked out very well, so I have no regrets.

I dig chicks that have their own careers that have nothing to do with music. Chicks in the music business try to impress you with it.I like models.

Twitter seems like a busman’s holiday: just more writing. I have no plans to do it. I’ll just stick with my 24/7 webcam. I’m old-fashioned that way.

I feel like I needed a balance. I don’t want to forget about my personal life and spending time with myself.

You know, I get a lot of people pitching songs to me.

I do like to start on time; I like to set the bar high for people.

I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it’s a little unseemly for women of a certain age.

People think clowns – I wasn’t a clown. I would run parties. I basically ran around for two hours and ate massive piles of Haribo.

You know my heart couldn’t take it.

[on Popeye] If you watch it backwards, it has a plot.