Quotes from Sammy Davis, Jr.

Part of show business is magic. You don't know how it happens.

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

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

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.

I had more clothes than I had closets, more cars than garage space, but no money.

I have to be a star like another man has to breathe.

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.

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

My home has always been show business.

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to get insulted.

You don't swing where you sleep.

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.

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.

The ultimate mystery is one's own self.

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

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.

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

I go to temple a lot less than I would like because when I do, people still look at me as if they think it's a publicity stunt.

Ten million dollars after I'd become a star I was deeply in debt.

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.

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

There are certain romances that belong in certain cities, in a certain atmosphere, in a certain time.

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

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