I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
TOM WAITSI do some acting. And there’s a difference between “I do some acting” and “I’m an actor.”
More Tom Waits Quotes
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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 -
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
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.
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 -
Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.
TOM WAITS -
The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.
TOM WAITS -
I was always laughing in church.
TOM WAITS -
But then I’m one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.
TOM WAITS -
You have to keep busy. After all, no dog’s ever pissed on a moving car.
TOM WAITS -
Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don’t care if they lose it; they’ll just make another one.
TOM WAITS -
The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
TOM WAITS -
I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
TOM WAITS -
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS -
The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
TOM WAITS