Sammy Davis, Jr.
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.Collection: Mother
Wishing, hoping and regretting are the most common and dangerous tactics for evading the present.Collection: Regret
If you want to be the best, baby, you've got to work harder than anybody else.Collection: Baby
Talk about handicap - I'm a one-eyed Negro Jew.Collection: Handicaps
Savor the moments that are warm and special and giggly.Collection: Friendship
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.Collection: Fighting
My handicap? Man, I am a one-eyed, black Jew! That's my handicap!Collection: Men
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.Collection: Names
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.Collection: Goyim
Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted.Collection: Stars
Imitations only better the original.Collection: Originality
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Elvis eleven.Collection: Scales
In terms of addiction, there is nothing more powerful than men's toys.Collection: Powerful
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.Collection: Hurt
"The Entertainer" He did it all.Collection: Tombstone
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.Collection: Song
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.Collection: Giving
You don’t swing where you sleep.Collection: Sleep
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.Collection: Laughing
Once I get outside my house in the morning, I'm on.Collection: Morning
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.Collection: Mistake
Tap dancing all started with the old clog waltz.Collection: Dance
You have to be able to look back at your life and say, “Yeah, that was fun.”Collection: Fun
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.Collection: Strong