Top 144 Quotes & Sayings by Frank Sinatra - Page 2

I get an audience personally involved in a song - because I'm involved myself. It's not something I do deliberately: I can't help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel.

The record shows, I took the blows . And did it my way.

Who knows where the road will lead us Only a fool would say, But if you let me love you I'm sure to love you all the way.

Fear is the enemy of logic.

If I had as many love affairs as I've been given credit for, I'd be in a jar at the Harvard Medical School.

There are moments when it's too quiet. Particularly late at night or early in the mornings. That's when you know there's something lacking in your life. You just know.

There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis' talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly. I shall miss him dearly as a friend. He was a warm, considerate and generous man.

I'm for whatever gets you through the night

I don't know what other singers feel when they articulate lyrics, but being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an overacute capacity for sadness as well as elation.

Orange is the happiest color.

I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.

I think that if you do the best you can in your life, you get your just reward. You sometimes give up a great deal to achieve a plane you're looking for. But if you find that it's important enough, then you do it. You have to decide. Even when you figure you've given up a great deal to get a small amount of something, the pain is only there for a short time. It really goes away. Whatever the quandary, it leaves you.

Bad reviews I've gotten never diminished the number of people in my audience; good reviews have never added to the number of people in my audience; be your own critic.

I've always had a theory that whenever guys and gals start swinging, they begin to lose interest in conquering the world. They just want a comfortable pad and stereo and wheels, and their thoughts turn to the good things of life - not to war. They loosen up, they live and they're more apt to let live.

For years I've nursed a secret desire to spend the Fourth of July in a double hammock with a swingin' redheaded broad. But I could never find me a double hammock

Card players have a saying: "It's all right to play if you keep your eyes on the deck" - which is another way of saving, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing Each time I find myself flat on my face I pick myself up and get back in the race

Only sing - don't do cheap songs, don't do silly songs, just do, just do wonderful songs that are well-written.

The thing that influenced me most was the way Tommy played his trombone. It was my idea to make my voice work in the same way as a trombone or violin-not sounding like them, but "playing" the voice like those instrumentalists.

For what is a man, what has he got. If not himself, then he has naught.

The cigarettes you light one after another won’t help you forget her.

A simple I love you means more than money.

Most of what has been written about me is one big blur, but I do remember being described in one simple word that I agree with. It was in a piece that tore me apart for my personal behavior, but the writer said that when the music began and I started to sing, I was "honest."

Someone said drink the water, but I will drink the wine Someone said take a poor man, the rich don't have a dime Go fool yourself, if you will, I just haven't got the time I'll give you back your water, and I will take the wine.

What's [the Beatles'] I Am the Walrus all about?

Rock 'n roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.

The reading of the song is vital. The written word is first always . . . first. Not belittling the music, but it really is a backdrop. To convey the meaning of a song you need to look at the lyric and understand it.

The only male singer who I've seen besides myself and who's better than me--that is Michael Jackson.

I'm just a singer, Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture.

If power doesn't mean that you have the opportunity to work with the people that you love , then you haven't really got any.

Stay alive, stay active, and get as much practice as you can.

There are several things I think I would have done if I had the chance again. I would have been a little more patient about getting out into the world. I would have seen to it that I had a more formal education. I would have become an accomplished mu

[Dean Martin] is an absolute, unqualified drunk. And if we ever develop an Olympic drinking team, he's gonna be the coach... Dean Martin has been stoned more often than the United States embassies.

There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in his name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions…I'm for decency—period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday—count me out.

I want to be buried with a Zippo, a roll of dimes & a bottle of Jack!

With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.

My greatest teacher was not a vocal coach, not the work of other singers, but the way Tommy Dorsey breathed and phrased on the trombone.

Fresh air makes me throw up. I can't handle it. I'd rather be around three Denobili cigars blowing in my face all night.

I play to all people - all colors, all creeds ~ drunk, sober, everybody.

People who make a living off other people's fortunes or misfortunes are parasites.

I think being jilted is one of life's most painful experiences. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart. It's happened to all of us and never gets any easier. I understand, however, that playing one of my albums can help.

The best revenge is the massive success.

It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.

Here's to the confusion of our enemies!

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. This I tell ya, brother, you can't have one without the other.

Deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac . . . it fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.

You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long. You are the breathless hush of evening that trembles on the brink of a lovely song.

I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life -- in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don't believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice.

At heart, I guess I'm a saloon singer because there's a greater intimacy between performer and audience in a nightclub. Then again, I love the excitement of appearing before a big concert audience. Let's just say that the place isn't important, as long as everybody has a good time.

You've got to be on the ball from the minute you step out into that spotlight. You gotta know exactly what you're doing every second on that stage, otherwise the act goes right into the bathroom. It's all over. Good night.

For nobody else, gave me thrill-with all your faults, I love you still. It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you.

I lived in a plenty tough neighborhood. When somebody called me a 'dirty little Guinea', there was only one thing to do-break his head. When I got older, I realized that you shouldn't do it that way. I realized that you've got to do it through education. Children are not to blame. It is the parents. How can a child know whether his playmate is an Italian, a Jew or Irish, unless the parents have discussed it in the privacy of their homes.

Never yawn in front of a lady.

For my money Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.

I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It's not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace.

To me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line.

Trouble just seems to come my way-unbidden, unwelcome, unneeded.

It took me a long, long time to learn what I now know, and I don't want that to die with me.

When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.

And if you should survive to 105 Look at all you'll derive out of being alive. Then here is the best part You have a head start If you are among the very young at heart.