black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

We are all just monkeys with money and guns.

Tom Waits

I can’t listen to so much music at the same time. I think you really have to have a diet. You’re just processing too much, there’s no place to put it. If you go a long time without hearing music, then you hear music that nobody else hears.
TOM WAITS

Listening Music Mysekf Place Procession Time
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick
Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.
TOM WAITS

Air Interest Song
I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
TOM WAITS

Affect Audience Believe Important Myself Way
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
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
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS

Donut Name Prostitute Sound
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
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork But it always comes roaring back again.
TOM WAITS

Drive Nature Roar Yourself
The trick is to have a career and have a family. It’s like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.
TOM WAITS

Career Family Night Trick Yourself
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
The piano has been drinking, not me.
TOM WAITS

Drink Funny Instrument Myself Piano
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 guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
TOM WAITS

Live Myself
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
I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
TOM WAITS

Lying Myself Past Secret

We are all just monkeys with money and guns.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

We are all just monkeys with money and guns.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Waits Quotes