Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

Diana Ross: Billie Holiday

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Quotes 

• Billie Holiday : [after Louis discovers that Billie shoots up]  Sure I've taken a few shots, but only when I needed it,

  [Louis sighs] 

  Billie Holiday : but i'm not hooked, Louis. I'm not.

  Louis McKay : Only when you needed it. What do you think hooked is? All I had to do is listen to your voice on the telephone and I knew. Who the hell do you think you're talking to? One of those ofay cats you be running around with? I've been on those streets all of my life. I know what that shit is!

  Billie Holiday : It's good, ain't it?

  [Louis then gets up and takes her suitcase and starts packing her stuff] 

  Billie Holiday : Wait, Wait, Baby! Oh, no.

  Louis McKay : We're going home. Now!

  Billie Holiday : [Stopping him]  Wait, hey, baby, wait. See, you don't understand. Now, you don't know how it is when people are looking down at you and laughing at you and think that I'm a loser. And if I go home now, I'll think that I'm one, too. I gotta prove it to them. I gotta prove it to myself.

  Louis McKay : What're you proving with that needle? That you're not woman enough to make it without a crutch? A magic way out when the going gets a little too rough? I want you to make it, too, baby. But not this way. Not this way.

• Piano Man : What she don't pick up from the top, she can pick up from the bottom.

  Billie Holiday : I hope that works both ways!

• Billie Holiday : How do you like your eggs?

• Louis McKay : Pardon me, lady. I must have got you mixed up with someone who used to reside as Missus, um... what's her name?

  Billie Holiday : If that's what you thought, nigger, why'd you give me them damn flowers? Why didn't you just give me some money?

  Louis McKay : I did.

• Reg Hanley : Did you hear that?

  Reg Hanley : Yeah.

  Vic : Sweet Sam and His Society Sissies. That's supposed to be us, man. That should be our gig.

  Reg Hanley : Do you want to be a sissy?

  Vic : Oh, man, here we are, riding our asses off all over this cotton-picking country trying to win these hicks over, and what do we got to show for it? Zero! Nothing, man. Bullshit! Where is that big radio cat that's supposed to discover us, Reg? Huh? Where is that son of a bitch, anyway?

  Harry : Hey, watch your mouth. Can't you see there's a lady present?

  Billie Holiday : That's right. Show some respect, you motherfucker.

• The Prostitute : Girl, if you wants to lay around all day, you is in the wrong end of the business.

  Billie Holiday : When I give it away for the first time, it ain't gonna be to no $2 John in East Baltimore. That's for damn sure.

  The Prostitute : At the rate you going, by the time you decide to give it away you'll have to pay some John $2 just to take it!

• Billie Holiday : That'll be swell, Mama. That'll be just swell.

• Billie Holiday : It's all right, Mama. Can't fault you for what ain't your fault.

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  Take my lips, I never use them...

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  You took the part, That once was my heart, So why not, Take all of me. Yeah! Take all of me.

• Reg Hanley : We're trying to form a band to take a tour around the country and we wanted to talk to you about joining us.

  Billie Holiday : Joining you? You serious?

  Reg Hanley : Very.

  Billie Holiday : A colored singer with a white band?

  Harry : Yeah. Yeah.

  Billie Holiday : Yeah? You must want to keep playing no place.

  Reg Hanley : Well, you see, that's exactly the point. We wouldn't be just another band with you singing. We'd be something special.

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  I want a pig foot, And a bottle of beer...

• Harry : Let's face it, Billie, you are the cream in our coffee.

  Billie Holiday : You got that the wrong way around, don't you?

• Billie Holiday : You mean to tell me that I have to travel all the way to East Jesus and back before I can get in some club downtown less than five minutes away from here?

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  Southern trees, Bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves, And blood at the root, Here is a fruit, For the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, For the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, For the tree, To drop, Here is a strange, And bitter, Crop...

• Billie Holiday : Look, Harry, like I've been telling you, what you do is your business. I may be tired, but I ain't dumb.

  Harry : You're walking across a street. A truck hits you. You're laying in the street. They take you to the nearest hospital. What's the first thing they do? They give you a shot of morphine. Now, morphine ain't an aspirin. It's - dope. Do you think that makes you an addict? One goddamn little shot ain't gonna make you a junkie, but, you know, it keeps you flying.

  Billie Holiday : Okay, Harry. If I get hit by a truck, I'll call you, okay?

• Louis McKay : If you go down, baby. I go down, too.

  Billie Holiday : I'm not going down, because there ain't no place down there I wanna be. Be going up, baby.

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  If I should take a notion, To jump into the ocean, Ain't nobody's bidiness if I do...

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  Good morning, heartache, You old gloomy sight, Good morning, heartache, Thought we said goodbye last night, I tossed and turned until it seemed, You had gone, But here you are with the dawn, Wish I'd forget you...

• Billie Holiday : Oh, baby. Oh, I missed you so much. Oh, you look so good. Oh, baby. How'd you get here?

  Louis McKay : Get your clothes off.

  Billie Holiday : I like your style, but I can't say much for your timing. Why don't we wait till we get home, get a nice hot bath?

  Louis McKay : No.

  Billie Holiday : Whatever you say. My, my, the man is ready. Well, so am I.

• Billie Holiday : Come on. Put it right up in there.

  The Hawk : Yeah, yeah.

  Billie Holiday : Come on, sweetheart.

  The Hawk : I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm coming.

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  Stop haunting me now, Can't shake you, no how, Just leave me alone, I've got those Monday blues, Straight through Sunday blues... .

• Billie Holiday : You take care of your mama, I take care of mine.

• Reg Hanley : Biillie.

  Billie Holiday : Yeah?

  Reg Hanley : Sing pretty...

  Billie Holiday : [singing]  I don't know why, But I'm feeling so sad, I long to try, Something I never had...

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  You've changed, You're not the angel I once knew, No need to tell me that we're through, It's all over now, You've changed...

• Louis McKay : Come on, take your hat now. We're going home, okay? We're going home.

  Billie Holiday : We're going home... .

  Louis McKay : Yeah, we're going home. All right?

  Billie Holiday : I'm going home, right?

  Louis McKay : Okay, you put your hat on. We're going home.

• Billie Holiday : You got your own harmonica.

  Piano Man : I got my own harmonica.

  Billie Holiday : I got my own high, too.

  Piano Man : I knew you were trying to hog the horse.

• Billie Holiday : Hey, you know what?

  Piano Man : Chicken butt.

  Billie Holiday : [singing]  Them that's got shall get, Them that's not shall lose...

• Billie Holiday : My father was all right. You know, he never did whip me? You wanna know why? 'Cause he wasn't there!

  [laughs] 

  Billie Holiday : He left my Mama.

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  God bless the child, That's got his own, That's got his own, Mama may have...

  [shouting] 

  Billie Holiday : Help, Mommy! Mama, help me! Somebody, help me!

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  Money, You got, Lots of friends, Crowding around the door, When it's gone, And spending ends, They don't come no more...

• Billie Holiday : [singing]  What's the difference if I say, I'll go my way when I know, I'll come back, On my knees, Some day, For whatever my man is, I'm his, Forevermore.

• Piano Man : You were beautiful. Just pretty.

  Billie Holiday : Thank you. I really was scared, I'll tell you that.

  Piano Man : You should have been scared. Them niggers is dangerous!

• Piano Man : Come on, you don't need this gutter-pusher's shit, I'm telling you.

  Billie Holiday : Look, I don't wanna talk to you.

  Piano Man : He cuts his shit. You don't know what he cuts it with. He don't care what he cuts it with. Goddamn, you gonna take a chance on a hotshot on this nigger's reference?

  The Hawk : Hotshot?

• Piano Man : When're you coming back? Because we miss you, honest to God. I don't care, rich or poor, we miss you. But we're poor, we need you.

  The Singer : Yeah, right.

  Billie Holiday : Well, I ain't gonna be coming back. Unless you can get this piano and the club into my kitchen, because I'm gonna be cooking for that pretty nigger over there.