The Jazz Singer quotes

View Quote Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet! Wait a minute, I tell ya! You ain't heard nothin'! You wanna hear "Toot, Toot, Tootsie"? All right, hold on, hold on... [walks back to one of the band members] Lou, listen. Play "Toot, Toot, Tootsie", three chorus, you understand. In the third chorus, I whistle. Now give it to 'em hard and heavy, go right ahead.

View Quote Harry Lee: I hope this 'discovery' of yours, Mary, is as good as you think he is.
Mary Dale: Don't worry about him. If it's music - he can sing it.

View Quote Jakie Rabinowitz: [after singing] Did you like that mama?
Sara Rabinowitz: Yes.
Jakie Rabinowitz: I'm glad of it. I'd rather please you then anybody I know of. Oh darlin, would you give me something?
Sara Rabinowitz: What?
Jakie Rabinowitz: You'll never guess. Shut your eyes mama, shut them for little Jackie. Ho, I'm gonna steal something.
[He kisses her, and they laugh together]
Jakie Rabinowitz: I'll give it back to you to someday, you see if I don't. Mama darling, if I'm a success in this show, well, we're going to move from here. Oh yes, we're move up in to Bronx. A lot of nice green grass up there and a whole lot of people you know of, there's the Ginsburgs and the Guttenburgs, the Goldbergs, a whole lotta Burgs oh I don't know them all. And I'm going to buy you a nice black silk dress mama. You'll see, the butcher's wife, she'll be jealous of you.
Sara Rabinowitz: Oh no, no...
Jakie Rabinowitz: Yes, she will, you see if she isn't. And I'm going to get you a nice pink dress that will go with your brown eyes.
Sara Rabinowitz: I, no thank you, no no, I don't need it.
Jakie Rabinowitz: What do you mean no? Who is telling you? Yes, you'll wear pink or else, or else you'll wear pink.

View Quote Jakie Rabinowitz: You taught me that music is the voice of God! It is as honorable to sing in the theatre as in the synagogue! My songs mean as much to my audience as yours to your congregation!
The Cantor: Leave my house! I never want to see you again - you jazz singer!

View Quote Moisha Yudelson: Jakie, your singing would be like sunshine to your Papa.
Jakie Rabinowitz: You don't understand - he ordered me out of the house.
Moisha Yudelson: Jakie, remember - - a son's a son no matter if his Papa throws him out a hundred times!

View Quote Sara Rabinowitz: Maybe our boy doesn't want to be a Cantor, Papa...
The Cantor: What has he to say? For five generations a Rabinowitz has been a Cantor - - he must be one!

View Quote The Cantor: I have taught him all the hymns and prayers - - he knows them as well as I do.
Sara Rabinowitz: Yes Papa - he knows all the songs - he has them in his head - - but not in his heart.

View Quote The Cantor: I'll teach him better than to debase the voice God gave him!
Sara Rabinowitz: But Papa - our boy, he does not think like we do.
The Cantor: First he will get a whipping!
Jakie Rabinowitz: If you whip me again, I'll run away - - and never come back!

View Quote Note: bolded portion ranked #71 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema

View Quote [Listening to Jakie cantoring at Yom Kippur services after the death of his father] A jazz singer...singing to his God!

View Quote Do what is in your heart, Jakie—if you sing and God is not in your voice — your father will know.

View Quote Here he belongs. If God wanted him in His house, He would have kept him there. He's not my boy anymore—he belongs to the whole world now.

View Quote I came home with a heart full of love, but you don't want to understand. Some day you'll understand, the same as Mama does.

View Quote My son came to me in my dreams—he sang Kol Nidre so beautifully. If he would only sing like that tonight—surely he would be forgiven.

View Quote My son was to stand at my side and sing tonight – but now I have no son.