1.
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.
2.
You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
3.
I bought a house in the Hollywood Hills and brought my grandmother from Harlem to live in it with me.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
4.
What have I got? No looks, no money, no education. Just talent.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
5.
You have to be able to look back at your life and say, "Yeah, that was fun."
Sammy Davis, Jr.
6.
If you want to be the best, baby, you've got to work harder than anybody else.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
7.
My mother was born in San Juan. So I'm Puerto Rican, Jewish, colored and married to a white woman. When I move into a neighborhood, people start running four ways at the same time.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
8.
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.
9.
Wishing, hoping and regretting are the most common and dangerous tactics for evading the present.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
10.
May was young and beautiful, we were legally married, but she was caught in the prison of my skin.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
11.
If you want to get known as a singer you hire five sexy chicks and let them fight over you onstage and for the cameras. That's publicity, man.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
12.
Alcohol gives you infinite patience for stupidity.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
13.
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.
14.
My handicap? Man, I am a one-eyed, black Jew! That's my handicap!
Sammy Davis, Jr.
15.
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.
16.
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.
17.
The ultimate mystery is one's own self.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
18.
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.
19.
Talk about handicap - I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
20.
Savor the moments that are warm and special and giggly.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
21.
Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
22.
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.
23.
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.
24.
I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
25.
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.
26.
Imitations only better the original.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
27.
Ten million dollars after I'd become a star I was deeply in debt.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
28.
Though I love the luxury of the Waldorf Towers, room service there doesn't do soul food.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
29.
I hadn't been in Vegas 20 minutes when I got word that the bookmakers were offering three to one that Frank wouldn't show for my wedding.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
30.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Elvis eleven.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
31.
Marilyn and I were rumored to be an item. We were friends. Nothing more. Marilyn was one of the sweetest creatures that ever lived.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
32.
Reality is never as bad as a nightmare, as the mental tortures we inflict on ourselves.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
33.
Sober up, and you see and hear everything you'd been able to avoid hearing before.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
34.
I had more clothes than I had closets, more cars than garage space, but no money.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
35.
I wasn't anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
36.
When Liza Minelli was a child, she used to sit on my lap and call me Uncle Sammy.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
37.
A man is not complete until he has seen the baby he has made.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
38.
Once I get outside my house in the morning, I'm on.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
39.
The manic pursuit of success cost me everything I could love: my wife, my three children, some friends I would have liked to grow old with.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
40.
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.
41.
In terms of addiction, there is nothing more powerful than men's toys.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
42.
My home has always been show business.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
43.
When you lose a lover it's like getting a bad haircut. It grows back in time.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
44.
There's nothing that can match Broadway for stature and dignity.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
45.
We can't answer King's assassination with violence. That would be the worst tribute we could pay him.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
46.
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.
47.
I didn't hate being 60 as much as I had 50.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
48.
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.
49.
There are certain romances that belong in certain cities, in a certain atmosphere, in a certain time.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
50.
The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.
Sammy Davis, Jr.