black
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On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”

Tom Waits

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

Commercial Oneself Song
I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.
TOM WAITS

Guy Ring Sell Type
it ain’t no sin, to take off your skin and dance around in your bones
TOM WAITS

Bone Dance Sin Skin Yourself
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

Break Children Fall Live Time Window Yourself
The beginning of it starts at the end.
TOM WAITS

Beginning End Start
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

Best Better Care Children Growth Oneself
I’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
TOM WAITS

Initial Myself Scratch
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 WAITS

Adventure Call Improvisation Myself Poet
I do some acting. And there’s a difference between “I do some acting” and “I’m an actor.”
TOM WAITS

Act Actor Difference Myself
I’m not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.
TOM WAITS

Fight Justice Myself World
I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.
TOM WAITS

Inspirational Myself Poor Reach Start
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
There’s always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.
TOM WAITS

Advice Deep Food Freedom Trap
I admit that I ain’t no angel, I admit that I ain’t no saint – I’m selfish and I’m cruel and I’m blind. If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. When they leave they’re so hard to find.
TOM WAITS

Angel Blind Finding Hard Myself Selfish
I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
TOM WAITS

Live Myself
I’m just trying to make a buck like everyone else.
TOM WAITS

Money Myself
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

Born Myself Night Search Sleep Sweet
Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell ’em to do that, they’ll find a little pot of gold.
TOM WAITS

Break Finding Stay Window
I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
TOM WAITS

Lying Myself Past Secret
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

Culture Known Music Myself Planet Topic
I don’t think that you should be perfectly candid and frank about the intimate details of your personal life with the public at large. Subsequently, it creates considerable personal problems.
TOM WAITS

Detail Intimate Myself Perfection Problem Thinking
The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
TOM WAITS

Average Change Life Person Time Traffic
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

People Scare Success Yourself
When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.
TOM WAITS

Age Myself Old Quite Young
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
TOM WAITS

Hate Myself Prime
The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
TOM WAITS

Away Big Small
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

On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”

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On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”

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Popular Authors

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