Billie Holiday Quotes in Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

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.

Billie Holiday: How do you like your eggs?

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!

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.