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 WAITSMy 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.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
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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 -
I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.
TOM WAITS -
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS -
You’ve gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot.
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I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
TOM WAITS -
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.
TOM WAITS -
Well, it’s either kiss me or kill me, that’s how I see it.
TOM WAITS -
You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.
TOM WAITS -
You got to tell me the brave captain Why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on?
TOM WAITS -
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 -
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
TOM WAITS -
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
The beginning of it starts at the end.
TOM WAITS