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I don’t go to church on Sunday, don’t get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way

Tom Waits

I dunno when I started writing really. I was, like, filling out applications and stuff real early. Last name first, first name last, sex. ‘occasionally’ , stuff like that. Then I was writing letters, filling out forms, writing on bathroom walls.
TOM WAITS

Application Fill Myself Sex Start Writing
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
Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
TOM WAITS

Funny Instrument Musician Myself
The Universe is making music all the time.
TOM WAITS

Music Time Universe
You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
TOM WAITS

Herself Learning Woman
Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.
TOM WAITS

Air Interest Song
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 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
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick
The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
TOM WAITS

Beat Bite Bone Dog Yourself
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Death Drive Man Trust Yourself
Bill Hicks – blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.
TOM WAITS

Brain Built Drive Himself Road Specialist Vision Willing
I 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.
TOM WAITS

Listening Music Mysekf Place Procession Time
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

Afraid Conversation Death Live Music Telephone
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 WAITS

Couple Myself Song Thinking Weather
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
I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.
TOM WAITS

Beautiful Melody Myself Terrible
If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
TOM WAITS

Enough Far Home Yourself
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

Arithmetic Boat Finding Hands Hold Myself Ocean
Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.
TOM WAITS

Gospel Myself Religious Yourself
All that you’ve loved is all you own.
TOM WAITS

Love One Liner Yourself
Most people don’t care if you’re telling them the truth or if you’re telling them a lie, as long as they’re entertained by it.
TOM WAITS

Care Entertainment Lying People Truth Yourself
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

Alive Hands Ideas Music Time Yourself
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 WAITS

Appreciation Greatness Music Myself Vocabulary
I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
TOM WAITS

Music Myself Song Wind
I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.
TOM WAITS

Evening Myself Train
She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her.
TOM WAITS

Forest Herself Live

I don’t go to church on Sunday, don’t get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way

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I don’t go to church on Sunday, don’t get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way

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Popular Authors

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