black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.

Tom Waits

There’s nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you’re not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I’m the worst. I’m the worst at that.
TOM WAITS

Break Cry Hard Time Laughter Life People Situation Worst Yourself
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 WAITS

Learning Listening Oneself Song Wonder Writing
I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.
TOM WAITS

Food High Myself Table Trade
I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I’m a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.
TOM WAITS

Appreciation Greatness Music Myself Vocabulary
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
TOM WAITS

Hate Myself Prime
Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
TOM WAITS

Devil God Sleep World
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS

Freedom Myself Science
I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong. I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.
TOM WAITS

Hear Ideas Myself Wrong
Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don’t get out much. It’s true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.
TOM WAITS

Admire Death Feeling People
The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you “know” about me is only what I allowed you to know about me.
TOM WAITS

Allow Fact Myself People Rumor Yourself
Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
TOM WAITS

Friendship Pain Reality
The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.
TOM WAITS

Culture Known Music Myself Planet Topic
Don’t look back, because someone might be gaining on you.
TOM WAITS

Back Sight Yourself
I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars.
TOM WAITS

Bowl Moon Myself Stars
We are all just monkeys with money and guns.
TOM WAITS

Monkey Reality Weapon
But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.
TOM WAITS

Cold Dance Hard Music Way

Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Waits Quotes