Sammy Davis Quotes

After I decided to become a Jew, only then did I learn that the Jews don't have all the money. When I found out Rockefeller and Ford were goyim, I almost resigned. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Ramon looked closely at the little guy as he ate. "Maybe he's Jewish. I mean, if Sammy Davis Jr. could convert to Judaism, why not a chupacabra? We should name him Harry Mendelbaum."
I held up my arms in protest. "You're all racist. Now shut up. We'll call him Taco von Precious of Svenenstein. There, everybody happy?"
"Isn't von the same thing as of?" Frank asked. "Wouldn't that be kind of redundant?"
"You're redundant," I said. ~ Lish McBride

You have to be able to look back at your life and say, "Yeah, that was fun." ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Being in public with May and the children was too heavy. I was irreversibly tuned in to everyone around us. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I saw that my image was changing or fading. One of the reasons for taking a break from clubs was to be missed-not forgotten. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Sammy Davis, Andy Williams, Tony Bennett ... their records sell in the millions; when I do it, it just trickles. But for the composer and lyricist, there's a tidy bit to be made that way, too, so I don't really mind. ~ Anthony Newley

You name it and I've done it. I'd like to say I did it my way. But that line, I'm afraid, belongs to someone else. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

You don't swing where you sleep. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Fame comes with its own standard. A guy who twitches his lips is just another guy with a lip twitch - unless he's Humphrey Bogart. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Elvis eleven. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

The only person I ever hurt was myself and even that I did to the minimum. If you can do that and you're still functioning, you're the luckiest person in the world. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

The success of the Rat Pack or the Clan was due to the camaraderie, the three guys who work together and kid each other and love each other. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

In terms of addiction, there is nothing more powerful than men's toys. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I'd learned a lot in the Army. I knew that above all things in the world I had to become so big, so strong that people and their hatred could never touch me. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

A man is not complete until he has seen the baby he has made. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Once I get outside my house in the morning, I'm on. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I was so opposed to the war in Vietnam that I initially refused President Nixon's urgings for me to go there. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Wishing, hoping and regretting are the most common and dangerous tactics for evading the present. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Here's the mark that a lot of people miss nowadays. Producers missed. They leave out the heart and soul. And that's what I learned from Sammy Davis, Jr., from Frank Sinatra, is when you went to go see those shows, you got to know them. ~ Donny Osmond

Sammy Davis, I backed him up. I used to study him every night. I saw how great performers worked and was able to incorporate a little bit from the best. ~ Bobby Vinton

May was young and beautiful, we were legally married, but she was caught in the prison of my skin. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Everything Michael Jackson does on stage is exactly right. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Would it be better if I'd married a Negro woman? Would they treat my child any better? Erect fewer barriers? ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I had traveled 10 states and played over 50 cities by the time I was 4. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Reality is never as bad as a nightmare, as the mental tortures we inflict on ourselves. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

When Liza Minelli was a child, she used to sit on my lap and call me Uncle Sammy. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Tap dancing all started with the old clog waltz. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

The ultimate mystery is one's own self. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I didn't hate being 60 as much as I had 50. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking, ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I became the storyteller of South Side Chicago. I used an old Kiwi liquid shoe polish as a microphone. I'd go around the house interviewing everybody, telling stupid jokes, doing voices. I mimicked Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., people on 'Laugh-In,' Flip Wilson. ~ Bernie Mac

I had more clothes than I had closets, more cars than garage space, but no money. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Alcohol gives you infinite patience for stupidity. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Part of show business is magic. You don't know how it happens. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

All I really had was my talent. Without that I wouldn't be welcome at the White House. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Would you believe that Sammy Davis, Jr. taught me how to sing a ballad? 'You can be in an arena,' he said, 'and you should be able to hold their attention.' ~ Gladys Knight

Sober up, and you see and hear everything you'd been able to avoid hearing before. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Most orgies that you go to, I have found, most of it is sad. All that wildness, all those laughs were like the shining silver and gold paper on packages, but there was nothing inside. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

If you ever get injured or have an asthma attack, the last words you get out are, 'Sammy Davis suite, please.' That's, like, three rooms on the eighth floor of Cedars-Sinai. ~ Charles Nelson Reilly

Real success is not on the stage, but off the stage as a human being, and how you get along with your fellow man. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I bought a house in the Hollywood Hills and brought my grandmother from Harlem to live in it with me. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I have a respect for Elvis and my friendship. It ain't my business what he did in private. The only thing I want to know is, 'Was he my friend?', 'Did I enjoy him as a performer?', 'Did he give the world of entertainment something?' - and the answer is YES on all accounts. The other jazz just don't matter. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I felt Michael Jackson was inspired a little bit more from the elegance of a Fred Astaire. Michael loved Sammy Davis, Jr. and James Brown and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. But he wasn't any of those people. To be inspired is one thing, but he made it all his own. ~ Kenny Ortega

When you lose a lover it's like getting a bad haircut. It grows back in time. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Do you think Sammy Davis ate Junior Mints? ~ George Carlin

My handicap? Man, I am a one-eyed, black Jew! That's my handicap! ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

You can be in this business 50 years and still not know anything about it. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

There's nothing that can match Broadway for stature and dignity. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Moshe Dayan, who said to Sammy Davis, Jr., That's funny, to me you only look half Jewish. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

Sinatra is the essence of vocal style. This man has an innate quality of knowing what is good musically. You can sum that up best by saying that he has musical integrity. Even when he does a bad song, there's a good quality in the presentation. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Bogart could have been color blind. He got to know a man before he decided if he liked him or not. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Imitations only better the original. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

There are lines that I know are going to get a belly laugh, but after a few shows I get sick of hearing myself say them so I drop them. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Talk about handicap! I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I've done some things I wish I could erase ... I invented mistakes. But the mistakes must be seen in context, and they must be weighed along with the positives. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

I wasn't anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Please stop assuming that longevity and perfect health is always the correct option. No. Sometimes fun costs ya. It just does, you know? And that's OK, you're willing to make that purchase. Sammy Davis, Jr. was 64 when he died. Give me 64 Sammy-years, I'll be happy. ~ Bill Maher

I'm doing what great artists before me did, like Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Eddie Cantor. I'm doing what they were doing, not at their level yet, but one day I will be. I'm just happy to be in their company. ~ Mike Tyson

A lot of people who were the best in their fields. I was fortunate enough to be friends with Sammy Davis, Jr. - I spent a lot of time with Sammy. I was over at his house almost every night. Those people were very special and very special for me. ~ James Darren

I liked old time music but what i meant by that was the period from the 1930s through the 60s, nothing before and little after.
Performers like fats waller, Sinatra, billie holiday, louis armstrong, rosemary clooney, ella, sammy Davis Jr, dean martin ... If the lyrics weren't stupid. Words were important. ~ Jeffery Deaver

I look at the careers of people I'm standing on the shoulders of. People like Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr., and Sarah Vaughan. These are icons I wanted to emulate, and I feel like they've been holding me up for quite a long time. ~ Dionne Warwick

People like Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Marlene Dietrich and Sammy Davis Jr. all walked me down this path of entertainment. ~ Dionne Warwick

The one thing you don't want is that stale sound when you've done a line so much you can't find a fresh approach to it. Drop it. ~ Sammy Davis Jr.

Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking; he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money. ~ Miles Davis

I think it's the right moment to talk about it because it is part of a revolutionary perspective - how can we not only discover more compassionate relations with human beings but how can we develop compassionate relations with the other creatures with whom we share this planet and that would mean challenging the whole capitalist industrial form of food production. ~ Angela Davis

I enjoyed the freedom they gave me - to write about almost any damned thing that came into my mind, whether it was crime, science fiction, western, fantasy or sports. ~ Norbert Davis

Sammy could not have known that one day he would come to regard all the things that their loving each other had seemed to put at so much risk
his career in comic books, his relations with his family, his place in the world
as the walls of a prison, an airless, lightless keep from which there was no hope of escape. Sammy had long since ceased to value the security that he had once been so reluctant to imperil. ~ Michael Chabon

Of course we may have any number of translations of a given text - the more the better, really. ~ Lydia Davis

There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair. ~ Viola Davis

For me, I tend to sit back sometimes and just count my blessings because of how long I've played. ~ Chili Davis

And I feel that filmmakers ought to be careful with the use of 3D. Because if you look back over the decades, you see that 3D has come and gone for I don't know how many years now. ~ Warwick Davis

Meanwhile, people have to join us and fight back against the federal government that has dropped the ball, that is in bed with these energy companies, that wants them to make more money than they've made before. ~ Gray Davis

I'm doing my part, building plants at a record rate, having historic conservation levels. The only people not doing their part is the federal government that is siding with the energy companies against the interests of the people of California. ~ Gray Davis

Are you waiting for life to happen? Well, life is waiting for YOU to happen! ~ Kristi Lynn Davis

Led him into the water. When they were waist deep, Philip declared in a voice that rang strong over the sunlight sparkling upon the water's surface, I baptize you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the water washes your outer body, so may the Spirit cleanse the inner man. Rise up into the eternal life that has been prepared for you! ~ Davis Bunn

I have a lot of spiritual books that I read that I really, really love - everything from the Bible to Joseph Campbell, who I love. He wrote The Hero of a Thousand Faces. It's about exploring what is heroic in you. It helps me a lot. ~ Viola Davis

Reputation is what men say about you on your tombstone;
Character is what the angels say about you before the throne of God ~ William Hersey Davis

If someone accidentally ingests sodium azide, you shouldn't try to resuscitate the person because you could die, too, giving CPR. This is a highly toxic chemical. ~ William Davis

Undoubtedly, the mind is restless and hard to control But it can be trained by constant practice and by freedom from desire." - B.K.S. Iyengar.

Climbing is really great, we all love climbing. But what's interesting to me is what happens in my head or in my life because of it. Ultimately, I think climbing is a vehicle for exploration - of the world, of the self. ~ Steph Davis

You shouldn't offer cookies without milk, you know. You're a pretty pathetic hostess. ~ Colleen Hoover

See, music is about style. ~ Miles Davis

I think we need to insist on a certain responsibility, which people have - particularly those who have made it into the ranks of the middle class because as [ Martin Luther] King said many years ago in a sense they have climbed out of the masses on the shoulders of their sisters and brothers and therefore, they do have some responsibility. ~ Angela Davis

I used to try to play like [Miles Davis], and Miles caught me copying him one night at Birdland. He said, 'Hey man, why don't you play some of your own stuff.' So, I finally did, because I had copied all his solos. ~ Freddie Hubbard

I guess I don't have much interest in writing straight drama. So whatever subject matter I choose will ultimately be dealt with in a comic way. ~ Jill Davis

Nothing the Rolling Stones ever did was more important than the respect they showed to the music that had inspired them. ~ Stephen Davis

Write me up for 125, poster my face wanted dead or alive. Take my license all that jive, I can't drive 55. ~ Sammy Hagar

The fact that I loved Jesus was beginning to interfere with the plans I once had for my life and certainly with the plans others had for me. My heart had been apprehended by a great love, a love that compelled me to live differently. ~ Katie Davis

When you go to other parks, they hang banners for the wild-card or Eastern Division or Western Division champions. Around here, they don't hang anything unless its for being world champions. ~ Chili Davis

God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union. ~ Jefferson Davis

He was so damn hard, he could chip the ice from his truck's windshield with his rigid pecker. ~ Vonnie Davis

I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters. ~ Lydia Davis

Mitt Romney, happens to have the exact skill set that the next president's going to require. ~ Artur Davis

Callista Gingrich has, I suspect, given Newt's advisers a giant headache. She's a constant presence at her husband's side - and a constant reminder of his acknowledged infidelity. Newt cheated on his second wife with Callista, a woman 23 years his junior. ~ Patti Davis

The first time I picked up a bat in a professional game, I hit a ball hard left-handed, and my first home run was so effortless, it surprised me. ~ Chili Davis

You could try making sense out of the universe, but you were too small and the parts you needed to see were too large or even smaller. ~ Kathryn Davis

I am passionate about music and my work to the bottom of my very soul, but I also very much enjoy good clothes and some of the finer things in life. Rappers do, too, and perhaps it's one of the reasons I've been welcomed so warmly into their world. ~ Clive Davis

We escaped the last big bursting of a bubble - the dotcom bubble - with a relatively light U.S. recession. On that occasion, the world economy found its way back on track fairly quickly. ~ Evan Davis

Interestingly, human irrationality is a hot topic in economics at the moment. Behavioural economics it's called, on the cusp of economics and psychology. ~ Evan Davis

Getting comfortable, he slipped off his suit jacket and made one last call for the night.

"So? Is Jordan on board?" Davis asked.

"Of course. Eckhart's not going to slip away that easily. But there's a catch." Nick eased onto the bed. "I'm calling in that favor you owe me. The one that just tripled in magnitude because of this mess you roped me into."

Davis sounded surprised. And a little suspicious. "What kind of favor?"

"Do we still have Agent Griegs in play?" Nick asked.

"Yes. Why?"

"This will involve him, too."

Davis sighed. "I'm not going to like this favor, am I?"

"Probably not," Nick said. "But I debated between this and having you call my mother to explain that it's your fault I can't make it to her sixtieth birthday party. You pick. But I should warn you: my mother is Italian. New York Italian, which is like being five hundred percent Italian."

Davis swore under his breath. "The hell with that. I'll get ahold of Griegs. ~ Julie James