Frank Sinatra Quotes

1. I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.




2. Alcohol may be man's worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.

3. I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life... I just go on from day to day, taking what comes.

4. You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.

5. Basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night - be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.






6. The best revenge is massive success.

7. I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family - and I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.

8. I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn't be a staring contest.

9. People often remark that I'm pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you've got to have talent and know how to use it.

10. Throughout my career, if I have done anything, I have paid attention to every note and every word I sing - if I respect the song. If I cannot project this to a listener, I fail.

11. Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.


12. May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.


13. Cock your hat - angles are attitudes.

14. I'm supposed to have a Ph.D. on the subject of women. But the truth is I've flunked more often than not. I'm very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all men, I don't understand them.

15. I'm for whatever gets you through the night.

16. Oh, I just wish someone would try to hurt you so I could kill them for you.

17. You treat a lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady.

18. Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

19. I'm gonna live till I die.

20. Dare to wear the foolish clown face.

21. I am a thing of beauty.

22. Don't get even, get mad. 

23. The martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.






24. Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I'm honest.

25. Fear is the enemy of logic. There is no more debilitating, crushing, self-defeating, sickening thing in the world - to an individual or to a nation.

26. I drink to the confusion of our enemies.

27. 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.

28. Orange is the happiest color.


29. I wish that one of these days somebody would learn to do (my art) so it doesn't die where it is.

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

31. All day long, they lie in the sun, and when the sun goes down, they lie some more.

32. 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.

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

34. Too many times I've been asked to say something about friends who are gone - this is one of the hardest....Dean was my brother - not through blood, but through choice....He has been like the air I breathe - always there, always close by.





35. You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad - if you're indifferent, Endsville.

36. 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.

37. 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 musician.

38. A man doesn't know what happiness is until he's married. By then it's too late.

39. I love all those girls the same as they love me. I get thousands of letters a week from girls who love me.... Every time I sing a song, I make love to them. I'm a boudoir singer.

40. 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 and in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... it manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.

41. Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks - it says: "Goodbye."

42. If you don't know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he's just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It's one world, pal. We're all neighbors.

43. 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.

44. 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.

45. 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. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well.

46. 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 - cash me out.

47. The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.

48. You may be a puzzle, but I like the way the parts fit.

49. A simple I love you means more than money....

50. (While accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award) I've been thinking about why you have to get famous to get an award for helping other people...If your name is John Doe, and you work night and day doing things for your helpless neighbors, what you get for your effort is tired. So, Mr. and Mrs. Doe, and all of you who give of yourselves, to those who carry too big a burden to make it on their own, I want you to reach out and take your share of this...Because if I have earned it, so too have you.

51. You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.

52. I'm trying to figure out, Chairman of what Board? People come up to me and seriously say: "Well, what are you Chairman of?" And I can't answer them.

53. A friend is never an imposition.

54. (his last words) I'm losing it.

55. (Talking about Burt Reynolds) He is the one the ladies like to dance with and their husbands like to drink with. He is the larger-than-life actor of our times. He is gifted, talented, naughty and nice.




56. A fella came up to me the other day with a nice story. He was in a bar somewhere and it was the quiet time of the night. Everybody's staring down at the sauce and one of my saloon songs comes on the jukebox, "One for My Baby", or something like that. After a while, a drunk at the end of the bar looks up and says, jerking his thumb toward the jukebox: "I wonder who he listens to?"

57. (when Dean Martin walked out on The Together Again Tour) You can't put a gun to his head. He just didn't want to do it.

58. Nothing anybody's said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.

59. (after the deaths of Sammy Davis Jr., Ava Gardner, Jilly Rizzo and Dean Martin) I'm next. I ain't scared, either. Everybody I ever knew is already over there.

60. (on Elvis Presley in 1957) Sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons; and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd - in plain fact, dirty - lyrics it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the Earth. This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore. His kind of music is deplorable, a rancid smelling aphrodisiac . . . it fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people.

61. (on Elvis Presley's death in 1977) There have been many accolades uttered about his talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree to wholeheartedly, I shall miss him dearly as a friend.

62. (on Ava Gardner) I love her, and God damn me for it.

63. 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.

64. Recording with Billy May is like having a bucket of cold water thrown into your face. Nelson Riddle will come to a session with all the arrangements carefully and neatly worked out beforehand. With Billy you sometimes don't get copies of the next number until you've finished the one before. Billy and Nelson both work best under pressure. Billy May is always driving while Nelson has more depth, and with Gordon Jenkins, it's just plain beautiful and simple.

65. (on Marlon Brando) He is the most overrated actor in the world.

66. No man's lifetime of work has better expressed the land of the free and the home of the brave. No man's lifetime of work has given proof to the world that our flag is still there. John Wayne is in truth a star-spangled man whom so proudly we hail.

67. For over half a century, Mr. Wayne (John Wayne) has served honorably as America's symbol to the world of the highest morals and prudent standards of our society.

68. (on Don Rickles) I like him. But that's because I have no taste.

69. In Hoboken, when I was a kid, I lived in a plenty tough neighborhood. When somebody called me a "dirty little pig," there was only one thing to do: break his head. When I got older, I realized you shouldn't do it (get even) that way. I realized you've got to do it through education . . . maybe with a few exceptions.

70.  For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He's the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.

71. I detest bad manners. If people are polite, I am. They shouldn't try to get away with not being polite to me.

72. I'm a performer. I'm better in the first take.

73. Don't tell me. Suggest. But don't tell me.

74. (on the resignation of US President Richard Nixon, Aug. 9, 1974) Any man can make a mistake.

75. (on friend Peggy Lee) Her wonderful talent should be studied by all vocalists; her regal presence is pure elegance and charm.

76. A well balanced girl is the one who has an empty head and a full sweater.




77. Critics don't bother me because if I do badly, I know I'm bad before they even write it. And if I'm good, I know I'm good. I know best about myself, so a critic doesn't anger me.

78. After 50, the rock 'n' roll road is a little absurd. It's very difficult to play these little places. You're out there on a rickety old bus with no place to shower.

79. After things started to happen here, my choice of material was extremely limited. It was a weird situation.

80. Never yawn in front of a lady.

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