Sinatra Quotes

My mother was against me being an actress – until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra was bothered with issues of anti-Semitism and racism all his life. The song and film he made ‘The House I Live In,’ was a deep message against prejudice and he was very proud to have recorded the song.

I’m awful at karaoke, but if I did have to sing, I’d go for my favourite Frank Sinatra song ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin.’ The fact I love Frank is my grandfather‘s doing: he drummed it into me from a very early age that Frank Sinatra is God.

Sinatra was somebody special.

I knew Sinatra for 38 years. He was like my father. Frank Sinatra was my ‘dad.’ He treated me like his son. He gave me the best advice about singing, about this and that… He was a very sensitive man, very astute, one of the sharpest men that I ever met in my life.

There will never be another Frank Sinatra. I never wanted to be another Frank Sinatra. I only wanted to be another Michael Buble.

Mick Jagger’s fans bought records with their allowances. Sinatra’s people bought them out of wages.

I want that Sinatra type of fame. It’s not the ‘Whoever‘s the hot pop star at the moment‘ fame. It’s the ‘Walk into a room and everybody just kind of politely nods their heads‘ fame. Sinatra fame.

Sinatra slowly found a way to allow tenderness into the performance while remaining manly. He perfected the role of the Tender Tough Guy and passed it on to several generations of Americans. Before him, that archetype did not exist in American popular culture.

The New York that Frank Sinatra sang about, people will never know that place. The New Orleans that Louis Armstrong sang about is the New Orleans that’s still there – it’s preserved.

I listen to a lot of jazz. I’m a big Sinatra geek. I love Chet Baker.

Sinatra’s endurance has become a rallying point for many people who feel that their sacrifices and hard work are no longer honored.

Some of my other heroes around that time were, oddly enough, Frank Sinatra, Nat Cole and people like that – I was always more inclined to listen to ballads.

If Sinatra had packed in his style because there were a load of counterfeit Sinatras about, he would have stopped singing in 1956 or whatever.

When I was a kid in the late ’60s and early ’70s, my parents and their friends would play the records of Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Perry Como, music with string arrangements and men singing songs that sounded sad whether they were or not.

Sinatra had deep loyalties to his friends for years.

My agent said to me five years ago, ‘Hugh, I can see one day you… if I had to plan a goal for you, it’s for you to have the kind of career that Sinatra had.’

Rob Thomas, the Action Bronson and the Riff Raff. Both the musicians, they know who I am and they know I come from oldest country in the world and if I want my words like the music. I forever love them like the Frank Sinatra.

I saw Sinatra many times. I saw him at Caesars. I saw him at the Sands.

There were screaming girls, I had to learn as a blind person how to run to a limousine otherwise they’d take my clothes off and stuff. I thought to myself ‘how could this happen?’ I mean I could see it, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, but Jose Feliciano? It was a mystery to me.

Frank Sinatra did ‘Born Free‘, Tony Bennett did ‘Walkabout,’ but you have no control over who does what, really. So you just hold yourself responsible for the stuff you do, and then get filthy rich on all this stuff that other people have done.

Sinatra had a lot of mood swings, but he was wonderful to my wife Barbara and to me. He made no bones about who he liked and who he loved, and he had this great charisma. When he walked into a room, it stopped. I’ve only seen that happen with Ronald Reagan.

Rihanna‘s voice is just delicious for your ear. Sinatra had the same thing; anything he sang sounded pleasing to most people.

My biography of Frank Sinatra is not paean to his music but rather an illumination of the man behind the music, who once described himself as ‘an 18-karat manic-depressive who lived a life of violent emotional contradictions with an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as happiness.’

I always come back to Frank Sinatra. Love some modern stuff – Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar – but give me ‘Night and Day’ or ‘In the Wee Small Hours,’ and all is chill.

The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didn’t have, ‘I love Frank’ on it, it had, ‘I love AC/DC’, ‘Guns N Roses‘, ‘Pearl Jam‘. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.

I have written for, very fortunately, some great singers from Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley.

I remember a show in New Jersey several years ago when a big fight broke out in the crowd. I took the microphone and introduced Frank Sinatra. He wasn’t there, but even the guys creating the disturbance stopped to look.

You know, legends are people like Haggard and Jones and Wills and Sinatra. Those people are legends. I’m just a young buck out here trying to keep in that same circle with the rest of ’em.

It’s not really a popular consensus to sing Sinatra – which I love! And I just think it’s so cool that he disliked rock n’ roll so much.

Sinatra, in my opinion, is possibly the greatest male singer of all time.

I have a fondness for jazz, particularly for jazz singers, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald all the way through the Sinatra era.

My musical development stopped when Frank Sinatra died.

I don’t think it’s ever changed, whether its Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller, Zeppelin, Guns n’ Roses or anyone today, the reason why you get into music is because you love it, and if you’re good at it, that’s a plus.

There’s only one Sinatra. But don’t forget that there’s only one Sinatra Jr., too.

You look at Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bob Seger. All they ever wanted to do was go out there and entertain, and I’m the same way.

The idea of the duets albums was the people who joined Frank Sinatra in each song were themselves successful record artists, I never was. I felt a certain apprehension at the time that some people thought my being there was pure nepotism. I felt kind of out of place about that.

I played on a few Frank Sinatra sessions.

The duet with Frank Sinatra, ‘What Now My Love,’ is one of my favorites.

Opening for Mr. Sinatra in 1991 enabled me to do Vegas more as an opening act. I did the Superdome with him, probably nine arenas over a year and a half, and his second-to-last appearance at the Desert Inn in Vegas.

My wife didn’t like Hollywood or its stars, but she made an exception when, in 1972, we were invited to dinner – cooked by Frank Sinatra.

When we first went to L.A., Howard Koch, who was the head of Paramount Pictures and later President of the Oscars, threw a welcome lunch for us at his house. There were all these stars there – Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Lucille Ball, Natalie Wood, Henry Mancini.

The highlight of my career was being at the inaugural gala of Ronald Reagan, and I owe that to Mr. Sinatra.

Sinatra was just one of Mom’s friends.

In 1957’s ‘There’s No You,’ Sinatra is suspended at the intersection of a loss he can’t face and a memory he can’t relinquish.

The inaugural of Ronald Reagan, with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. And that was the greatest thing. Ronald Reagan and George Bush. That was – I still remember like it was yesterday.

Jaco Pastorius gave the bass a new voice. I mean, he was very inspired by singers like Frank Sinatra. And in a lot of ways, maybe he wanted to be a singer himself.

When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you’re talking about. Thank God I was ready for it.

My dad was kind of a pool shark and had a Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin thing going on. I’ve always been fascinated by the fifties because of him. There was a hip, cool, anything-goes atmosphere back then, but looking good was still a priority.

I’ve had more comebacks than Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra is so connected with the persona of the ‘Guys and Dolls‘ characters even though he had great conflicts with Frank Loesser personally.

The thing is that my idols have always been the types of guys who could do anything: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Sinatra, Dean Martin; and when you look up to people like that, you don’t accept that you need to be compartmentalised.

I’ve been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for ‘From Here To Eternity.’ David Bowie in ‘Man Who Fell to Earth,’ Kris Kristofferson’s been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in ‘Precious.’

I grew up listening to legends such as Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Tony Bennett.

The high point for me in my career was when Sinatra called me his favourite performer in the Fifties. And I’ve been sold out ever since.

Sinatra’s melancholy was the melancholy of mass (old) media technology – the ‘extimacy’ of the records facilitated by the phonograph and the microphone, and expressing a peculiarly cosmopolitan and urban sadness.

My dad sent Frank Sinatra a dollar bill to autograph, and when it came back, signed, he had it framed: it was always up on the wall in whatever flat we were in.

I love New York. You want to find out if you’re any good? Try New York. Who sang that? Frank Sinatra? If you make it here, you can make it anywhere.

I was a pop-music junkie. My parents were into Frank Sinatra and Doris Day. They weren’t too excited when I had Aretha or the Stones pumping.

I worked with practically everybody in the business in all of the years in NBC, but I worked personally many years with people like Crosby and Sinatra, so of course that was a great ground school for me.

My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too – the late-’30s, early-’40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday – all that stuff was in my background.

I want people to feel what it was like in the ’40s. That’s when popular music in the United States was so beautiful. Frank Sinatra, the Pied Pipers, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday. That’s when popular music had deeper values, to me. This was music that was selling millions of records.

Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records, and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. He just let them sing whatever they wanted, and it became the best record company in America.

I listen to everything from Lady Gaga to Lady Antebellum. I’ve got Frank Sinatra. I’ve got old stuff, new stuff. Iggy Azalea. I’ve got everything.

Everything about Sinatra was good. He had the ability to pick great songs, and once Sinatra had sung them, that pretty much was it. He pretty much put his stamp on everything.

Frank Sinatra was a popular star, but he was always so sweet and friendly to me that I was excited just to be next to him.

When Sinatra was alive and singing, he was constantly changing orchestrators from one album to the next because he said he didn’t want every record to sound like every other record.

The Best of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Hailey and the Comets, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine all topped the charts in the ’50s. Load a playlist of rock n’ roll royalty. You’re spoilt for choice.

I kept looking to do songs that were written years ago and would live or outlive all of us, and the one thing they had in common was Sinatra.

Frank Sinatra will go on forever.

When I was in my formative years, I rejected Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin. I now realise they were all great artists, but at the time, as a young man, you have to clear the decks.

I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.

Well, I met Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan in the space of 15 minutes. Frank Sinatra kissed me on the lips. He kissed me on the lips. And then he gave me a filterless cigarette. And then I met Bob Dylan. I came off all lightheaded and had to go sit on his dressing-room steps.

I always admired Frank Sinatra. He had ups and downs, but he didn’t give up his style. He had what might have been a tough life or character.

Representing not just the resurrection of a career, 1953 marked 37-year-old Frank Sinatra’s creative emergence as the best singer of his century.

There’s this old Frank Sinatra song: ‘If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’… that song was about New York, but it applies to America. People know that if you make it in America, you can make it anywhere, and that is both in terms of sophistication and customer satisfaction.

It’s amazing the number of young people who are interested in Frank Sinatra.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I worked on a film short with Frank Sinatra when I was a kid.

I listen to some rap music. I’m from the Bahamas so I like reggae as well. And then I slow it down with a little Frank Sinatra.

What makes Gucci Mane Gucci Mane is like what made Frank Sinatra Frank Sinatra – it’s just him. He’s trap‘s Frank Sinatra.

Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet. I worked with him until he passed away in ’98. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don’t need a passport. I just flash my ring.

The rumors of Frank Sinatra’s violence and his ties to organized crime were such that journalists joked in print about me ending up in concrete boots and sleeping with the fishes if I proceeded to write his biography.

Sinatra invited me once to his birthday party in L.A. I was young, and I felt great about it. But when I got there, the Rat Pack were all in the kitchen laughing their heads off.

Pablo Picasso, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway, Mel Gibson, Lou Reed, Norman Mailer, Vanessa Redgrave, Van Morrison – each is distinguished by controversies unrelated to his or her art; by many accounts, some of them are not nice people at all.

I’m a ‘never say never‘ girl. Frank Sinatra retired four times. He kept coming back. But there are people in our business who want to die on stage. Literally. I don’t want to do that.

Van Heusen understood Sinatra’s style of singing; Sinatra understood Van Heusen’s concept of melody.

No one controlled Frank Sinatra or told him how to sing. No secret group of managers has been telling someone like Jay-Z what to do or how to look. And no one tells me what to do except me and the people who believe in me.