Frank Sinatra was a pivotal musical figure in the 20th century, with a career spanning 60 years.
He rose to fame during the swing era and maintained popularity through the rock era, promoting and reinterpreting American popular songs written by great theater composers like Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and others.
Sinatra dropped out of high school and began his music career as part of the Hoboken Four, later joining Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey’s bands.
In 1942, he embarked on a solo career, becoming the first real teen idol. Despite a dip in popularity at the start of the ’50s, Sinatra revived his career by signing with Capitol Records and winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in “From Here to Eternity” (1953).
This marked a turning point in Sinatra’s career, which included successful ventures in film, radio and television, cementing his legacy as an enduring cultural icon.
In this article, I have curated the best quotes by Frank Sinatra.
Best Frank Sinatra Quotes
1. “The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
2. “Don’t hide your scars. They make you who you are.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
3. “You may be a puzzle, but I like the way the parts fit.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
4. “Fear is the enemy of logic.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
5. “And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
6. “I’m gonna live till I die.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
7. “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
8. “A simple “I love you” means more than money.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
9. “You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
10. “Regrets, I’ve had a few but then again too few to mention. And more, much more than this, I did it my way.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
11. “The best revenge is massive success.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
12. “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere; it’s up to you, New York, New York.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
13. “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).
14. “Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
15. “For what is a man, what has he got. If not himself, then he has naught.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
16. “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
17. “The best is yet to come and won’t that be fine.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
18. “Don’t get even, get mad.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
19. “Stay alive, stay active, and get as much practice as you can.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
20. “A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then it’s too late.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
21. “You buy a Ferrari when you want to be somebody. You buy a Lamborghini when you are somebody.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
Popular Frank Sinatra Quotes
22. “Don’t respond to negativity with more negativity. Just put your head down and prove your critics wrong.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
23. “The record shows, I took the blows. And did it my way.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
24. “Las Vegas is the only place I know where money really talks – it says, Goodbye.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
25. “I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
26. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
27. “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).
28. “You better get busy living, because dying’s a pain in the ass.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
29. “Dare to wear the foolish clown face.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
30. “All day long, they lie in the sun, and when the sun goes down, they lie some more.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
31. “What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
32. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
Top Frank Sinatra Quotes
33. “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).
34. “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).
35. “I’m for whatever gets you through the night.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
36. “A friend to me has no race, no class and belongs to no minority. 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).
37. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
38. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
39. “Orange is the happiest color.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
40. “I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
41. “May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
42. “The cigarettes you light one after another won’t help you forget her.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
43. “To do is to be. -Descartes To be is to do. – Voltaire Do be do be do.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
44. “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).
Famous Frank Sinatra Quotes
45. “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).
46. “Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
47. “People who make a living off other people’s fortunes or misfortunes are parasites.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
48. “Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
49. “I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn’t be a staring contest.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
50. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
51. “You’ve either got or you haven’t got style, and if you’ve got it you stand out a mile.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
52. “Never yawn in front of a lady.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
53. “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).
54. “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).
55. “When I sing, I believe. I’m honest. If you want to get an audience with you, there’s only one way. You have to reach out to them with total honesty and humility.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
56. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
57. “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).
58. “A friend is never an imposition.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
59. “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).
60. “I am a thing of beauty.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
61. “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).
62. “Only sing – don’t do cheap songs, don’t do silly songs, just do, just do wonderful songs that are well-written.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
63. “When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
Short Frank Sinatra Quotes
64. “Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I’m honest.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
65. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
66. “When I sing, I believe. I’m honest.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
67. “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).
68. “The only male singer who I’ve seen besides myself and who’s better than me – that is Michael Jackson.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
69. “I 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 Sinatra).
70. “As you may know, I have many good friends in the press who, unfortunately, have thus far refused to identify themselves and go public.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
71. “Basically, I’m for anything that gets you through the night – be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
72. “Way 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).
73. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
74. “Oh, I just wish someone would try to hurt you so I could kill them for you.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
Great Frank Sinatra Quotes
75. “It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
76. “Rock ’n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
77. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
78. “The martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
79. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
80. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
81. “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).
82. “I’m just a singer, Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
83. “Nothing anybody’s said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
84. “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.”” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
85. “If I had done everything I’m credited with, I’d be speaking to you from a laboratory jar at Harvard.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
86. “You treat a lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
87. “Now there’s a grown-up swinging town.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
88. “It 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 Sinatra).
89. “Here’s to the confusion of our enemies!” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
90. “For my money Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
91. “Trouble just seems to come my way-unbidden, unwelcome, unneeded.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
92. “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).
93. “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.” ~ (Frank Sinatra).
