Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold an estimated 150 million records worldwide. Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate, easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the “bobby soxers”.
Sinatra released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. However, by the early 1950s, his film career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of the film From Here to Eternity, his performance subsequently earning him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Sinatra then released several critically lauded albums, some of which are retrospectively noted as being among the first “concept albums”, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958), No One Cares (1959), and Nice ‘n’ Easy (1960). Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums.
In 1965, he recorded the retrospective album September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968’s Francis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington.
Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later. He recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and released “New York, New York” in 1980. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).
He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he frequently played detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s.
Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He was investigated by the FBI for his alleged relationship with the Mafia. While Sinatra never learned how to read music, he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music.
A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname “Ol’ Blue Eyes”. He led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements.
He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He’s often regarded as the greatest singer of the 20th century, and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.
Some of the best quotes from Frank Sinatra are listed below.
- “A friend is never an imposition.” – Frank Sinatra
- “A friend to me has no race, no class, and belongs to no minority.” – Frank Sinatra
- “A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then, it’s too late.” – Frank Sinatra
- “A simple ‘I love you’, means more than money.” – Frank Sinatra
- “A well-balanced girl is the one who has an empty head and a full sweater.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy.” – Frank Sinatra
- “All day long, they lie in the sun, and when the sun goes down, they lie some more.” – Frank Sinatra
- “At heart, I guess I’m a saloon singer because there’s a greater intimacy between performer and audience in a nightclub.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “But to me, religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Dare to wear the foolish clown face.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Dean Martin has been stoned more often than the United States embassies.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Dean Martin is an absolute, unqualified drunk. And if we ever develop an Olympic drinking team, he’s gonna be the coach.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Don’t get even, get mad.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Don’t hide your scars. They make you who you are.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Don’t respond to negativity with more negativity. Just put your head down and prove your critics wrong.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Each time I find myself flat on my face, I pick myself up and get back in the race.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Fear is the enemy of logic.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “For what is a man, what has he got. If not himself, then he has naught.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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 Sinatra
- “Go fool yourself, if you will, I just haven’t got the time.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Hello, this is a recording, you’ve dialed the right number, now hang up and don’t do it again.” – Frank Sinatra
- “How can I ignore the girl next door? I love her more than I can say.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I am a thing of beauty.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I could go on stage and make a pizza and they’d still come to see me.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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 over acute capacity for sadness as well as elation.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I feel sorry for people that don’t drink because when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they are going to feel all day.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I get an audience personally involved in a song – because I’m involved myself.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn’t be a staring contest.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I shall miss him – Elvis – dearly as a friend. He was a warm, considerate and generous man.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’m for whatever gets you through the night.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’m gonna live till I die.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’m just a singer, Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’m mad about good books, can’t get my fill.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’m supposed to have a Ph.D. on the subject of women. But, the truth is I’ve flunked more often than not.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’m very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all men, I don’t understand them.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’ve been thinking about why you have to get famous to get an award for helping other people.” – Frank Sinatra
- “I’ve lived a life that’s full, I traveled each and every highway, and more, much more than this. I did it my way.” – Frank Sinatra
- “If I had done everything I’m credited with, I’d be speaking to you from a laboratory jar at Harvard Medical School.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “If you possess something but you can’t give it away, then you don’t possess it, it possesses you.” – Frank Sinatra
- “In the wee small hours of the morning, that’s the time you miss her most of all.” – Frank Sinatra
- “It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.” – Frank Sinatra
- “It took me a long, long time to learn what I now know, and I don’t want that to die with me.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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 Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “It’s not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks – it says, ‘Goodbye.’” – Frank Sinatra
- “Let’s close our eyes, and make our own paradise.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Let’s just say that the place isn’t important, as long as everybody has a good time.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Love is when you want to sing every day and night. Without fee and a manager.” – Frank Sinatra
- “May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “My friendships were formed out of affection, mutual respect, and a feeling of having something strong in common. These are eternal values that cannot be racially classified. This is the way I look at race.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Nothing anybody’s said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Oh, I just wish someone would try to hurt you so I could kill them for you.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Orange is the happiest color.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “People who make a living off other people’s fortunes or misfortunes are parasites.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Regrets – I’ve had a few; but then again, too few to mention.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Rock ‘n roll 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 Sinatra
- “Rock ‘n roll smells phony and false.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Someone said, ‘Drink the water,’ but I will drink the wine.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely night dreaming of a song.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Stay alive, stay active, and get as much practice as you can.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The best is yet to come and won’t that be fine.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The best revenge is massive success.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The cigarettes you light one after another won’t help you forget her.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The moment I saw her smile, I knew she was just my style.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The only male singer who I’ve seen besides myself and who’s better than me – that is Michael Jackson.” – Frank Sinatra
- “The thing that influenced me most was the way Tommy played his trombone.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Then again, I love the excitement of appearing before a big concert audience.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “There have been many accolades uttered about Elvis’ talent and performances through the years, all of which I agree with wholeheartedly.” – Frank Sinatra
- “There is no more debilitating, crushing, self-defeating, sickening thing in the world to an individual or to a nation.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Want to cry, want to croon, want to laugh like a loon.” – Frank Sinatra
- “We might have been meant for each other. To be or not to be, let our hearts discover.” – Frank Sinatra
- “What formula? I never had one, so I couldn’t say what the main ingredient is. I think everybody who’s successful in this business has one common ingredient – the talent God gave us. The rest depends upon how it’s used.” – Frank Sinatra
- “What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.” – Frank Sinatra
- “What is the point of singing wonderful lyrics if the audience can’t understand what is being said or heard?” – Frank Sinatra
- “Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I’m honest.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Whatever the quandary, it leaves you.” – Frank Sinatra
- “Who knows where the road will lead us. Only a fool would say.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You and your glance make this romance too hot to handle.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You are all I long for all I worship and adore.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You better get busy living, because dying’s a pain in the ass.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You buy a Ferrari when you want to be somebody. You buy a Lamborghini when you are somebody.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You came along and everything started to hum.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad – if you’re indifferent, Endsville.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You lie awake and think about the girl, and never, ever think of counting sheep.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You may be a puzzle, but I like the way the parts fit.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.“ – Frank Sinatra
- “You only live once, and the way I live once is enough.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You treat a lady like a dame and a dame like a lady.” – Frank Sinatra
- “You’ve either got or you haven’t got style, and if you’ve got it you stand out a mile.” – Frank Sinatra
- “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.” – Frank Sinatra
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