Billie Holiday

When you sing, always tell the truth.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I think I had the best of James [Taylor]. I mean, I was so in love with him. Not with blinders on – I was in love with him because he is a remarkable man, and he gave me a tremendous amount.

You can repeat the mistakes of your parents’ marriage or you can go out of your way not to repeat them.

You know the funny thing, I don’t get along with rich people. I get along with the middle class and the poor people better than I get along with the rich people.

A lot of people believe what other people say.

The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident.

If I go into a club now, all the blonde girls leave my corner and all the black girls come into my corner. It’s as if I’m racist towards white girls!

You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything….Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

I don’t understand how in my parents’ age, it was ’til death do us part, and in mine it’s ’til cheating do us part, ’til lying do us part, ’til chemistry do us part, ’til disagreements do us part, ’til boredom do us part, ’til cowardice do us part. I just want what my parents have, that part.

The best present a man can give a woman is his undivided attention.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well — he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

Men fall in love with their eyes. Women fall in love with their ears.

Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.

My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me.

To be a friend means that they are always there, for the good or the bad.

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.