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.
Frank SinatraIf I had as many love affairs as I've been given credit for, I'd be in a jar at the Harvard Medical School.
Frank SinatraIt is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.
Frank SinatraI 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.
Frank SinatraThere 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.
Frank SinatraIf you possess something but you can't give it away, then you don't possess it... it possesses you.
Frank SinatraCritics 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.
Frank SinatraI firmly believe that nuclear war is absolutely impossible. I don't think anyone in the world wants a nuclear war - not even the Russians.
Frank SinatraI 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.
Frank Sinatra(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.
Frank SinatraWith 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.
Frank SinatraDon't respond to negativity with more negativity. Just put your head down and prove your critics wrong.
Frank SinatraYou've either got or you haven't got style, and if you've got it you stand out a mile.
Frank SinatraRock '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.
Frank SinatraI 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.
Frank SinatraIt was a staggering moment when I first heard the news. Lennon was a most talented man and above all, a gentle soul. John and his colleagues set a high standard by which contemporary music continues to be measured.
Frank SinatraThroughout 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.
Frank SinatraFor 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
Frank SinatraBasically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night - be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Frank SinatraWhen lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.
Frank SinatraLove 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.
Frank SinatraRock n' roll is the most disgusting form of expression, it's brutal, malefic, a pestilential aphrodisiac, the preferred music of the delinquents of the earth.
Frank SinatraBad 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.
Frank SinatraMost 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."
Frank SinatraI 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.
Frank SinatraWay down among Brazilians. Coffee beans grow by the billions. So they've got to find those extra cups to fill. They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil
Frank Sinatra