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Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.

Tom Waits

You’ve gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot.
TOM WAITS

Known Trust Yourself
My wife called me a mule. She once said, “I didn’t marry a man; I married a mule!” I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.
TOM WAITS

Animal Goodness Man Marriage Myself Thinking Wife
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.
TOM WAITS

Alive Hands Ideas Music Time Yourself
Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.
TOM WAITS

Absorb Willing Yourself
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

Avoid Habit Hard Old Scatter Stop Togetherness Yourself
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
And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.
TOM WAITS

Death Earth Myself Scream
The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
TOM WAITS

Away Big Small
The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
TOM WAITS

Average Change Life Person Time Traffic
I like vocal word stuff. But I don’t always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It’s more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It’s closest to the choreography of a bee. You’re freer.
TOM WAITS

Fingers Freedom Instrument Myself Vocal Word
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
TOM WAITS

Capture End Feature Song Writing
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
TOM WAITS

Abundance Bury Happiness Information Quantity Wealth Weight
Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.
TOM WAITS

Dreams Instagram Captions One Liner Rainbow Sing Steal
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
I’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
TOM WAITS

Initial Myself Scratch
I don’t like hearing Beatles songs in commercials. It almost renders them useless. I think, ‘Oh God, another one bites the dust.’
TOM WAITS

Commercial Oneself Song

Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.

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Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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