Top 18 Frankie Valli Quotes

I went to school to learn to be a hairdresser. I worked at a wholesale florist, where I delivered to florists all over New Jersey. I’d come home and go out to work down at the Shore. The early jobs, I remember, were $5, $6 a night. And I lived in the projects right until the time I became successful.

I don’t play golf or tennis, I don’t ski, I don’t snowboard. If you love what you do, you never get enough of it.

I think Lady Gaga is talented. Madonna is talented, and the flair that Michael Jackson had. He was talented! Whatever it is that they do, they must be doing something right. They do have an audience out there, so I respect that.

Jazz was my first love.

It’s always very special for me to work Chicago. Both of the record companies I was with, early on, were based in Chicago. The music was always huge there.

When somebody is making a movie about your life, that’s different. A show is a live performance. Things are going to go wrong. You are going to get away with things. A movie is indelible. A movie is through a microscope.

People don’t get married to get divorced. Maybe people weren’t meant to be together forever.

One day, when I was still living at home, a friend told ‘Texas’ Jean Valli about me. She was originally from Syracuse, N.Y., and lived in New Jersey but sang country. One night, she had me come up on stage where she was performing. I sang ‘My Mother’s Eyes,’ and she was knocked out.

I learned by listening to other people sing and doing impressions of them. And there are things no one can ever teach you, like phrasing. By listening to Sinatra, for instance – you felt that everything he sang had happened in his life.

I do belong to Jersey. There’s no doubt about that in my mind. They have been so loyal and so good to me; how could I possibly belong any place else?

I’d seen so many people become stagnant in New Jersey – I had this fear I’d just stay there. They’d come out of high school, get a job, get married, have kids and die in Jersey. I wanted more.

Becoming successful is a relentless pursuit. It’s good that it’s that way: When it does come, you learn to know how to appreciate it, and know how lucky you are to be doing something that you love so much.

I grew up beyond proud – we didn’t have much, but we had a lot of love.

In 1967, I found out I was losing my hearing. I went 10 years without any help. I had otosclerosis – hardening of the bone in the middle of the ear.

I’m not doing contemporary songs unless something comes along that really knocks my socks off.

If I close my eyes, I can remember the first apartment where I lived with my family in Newark, N.J., in the late 1930s. The rooms were lined up like train cars – you had to go through one to get to another – and there wasn’t any heat or hot water.

With ‘Sherry,’ we were looking for a sound. We wanted to make the kind of mark that, if the radio was playing one of our songs, you knew who it was immediately. But I didn’t want to sing like that my whole life.

I always believed a singer should be able to sing any kind of song. If I wanted to sing a Cole Porter song, I should be able to do that. Or ‘Sherry,’ I should be able to do that. Or a Dylan song.