For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.
TOM WAITSBreak windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell ’em to do that, they’ll find a little pot of gold.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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I’m trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It’s like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.
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I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.
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I like Thelonious Monk, he’s so gnarled, he’s like a piece of machinery that’s pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.
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I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.
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The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
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Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell ’em to do that, they’ll find a little pot of gold.
TOM WAITS -
Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart.
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People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They’re no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail.
TOM WAITS -
I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet. So I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.
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It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
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A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
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We have a deficit of wonder right now.
TOM WAITS -
Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.
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You’ve gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot.
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The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
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When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.
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There’s always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.
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All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
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Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.
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Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.
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Well, it’s either kiss me or kill me, that’s how I see it.
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The earth is not my home, I’m just passing by.
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Never have your wallet with you onstage. It’s bad luck. You shouldn’t play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.
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The beginning of it starts at the end.
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If I exorcise my devils, all my angels may go, too.
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It’s very hard to stop doing things you’re used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits.
TOM WAITS