I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet. So I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.
TOM WAITSI’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.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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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.
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I don’t have a drinking problem ‘Cept when I can’t get a drink.
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New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.
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I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
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You’re innocent when you dream.
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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.
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On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
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Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.
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You’re my North Star when I’m lost and feeling blue.
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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.
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The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
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People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They’re no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail.
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I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
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Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
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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