I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.
TOM WAITSI 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.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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Living with kids is like living with a bunch of drunks. You know you really have to be on your toes all the time. Things are falling over and breaking and spilling. If you live on the second story, you really have to keep the windows shut all the time.
TOM WAITS -
it ain’t no sin, to take off your skin and dance around in your bones
TOM WAITS -
I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We’re all looking at the wrapping. But we won’t tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath.
TOM WAITS -
But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.
TOM WAITS -
You have to keep busy. After all, no dog’s ever pissed on a moving car.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.
TOM WAITS -
Slept all night in the cedar grove, I was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin’ for the holy grail, but there ain’t nothin’ sweeter than ridin’ the rails.
TOM WAITS -
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS -
Bill Hicks – blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
Their memory’s like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can’t remember Tell the things you can’t forget that History puts a saint in every dream.
TOM WAITS -
Don’t look back, because someone might be gaining on you.
TOM WAITS -
Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.
TOM WAITS -
Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.
TOM WAITS -
All that you’ve loved is all you own.
TOM WAITS -
I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.
TOM WAITS -
The ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.
TOM WAITS -
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
Don’t plant your days they turn into weeds.
TOM WAITS -
If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
TOM WAITS -
Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.
TOM WAITS -
I do some acting. And there’s a difference between “I do some acting” and “I’m an actor.”
TOM WAITS -
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS -
I was always laughing in church.
TOM WAITS