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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

I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
TOM WAITS

Music Myself Song Wind
You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.
TOM WAITS

Children Learning Yourself
You know, we just buy music now. We don’t make it any more. And that goes for just about everything. I think it’s so important that people develop and subscribe to and have confidence in their own ability to make music, however rough it is.
TOM WAITS

Ability Confidence Important Music Rough Thinking Yourself
If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
TOM WAITS

Enough Far Home Yourself
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

Admire Death Feeling People
All that you’ve loved is all you own.
TOM WAITS

Love One Liner Yourself
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS

Donut Name Prostitute Sound
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 made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars.
TOM WAITS

Bowl Moon Myself Stars
You have to keep busy. After all, no dog’s ever pissed on a moving car.
TOM WAITS

Busy Car Dog Move Yourself
The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
TOM WAITS

Beat Bite Bone Dog Yourself
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS

Freedom Myself Science
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
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick
But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.
TOM WAITS

Cold Dance Hard Music Way
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

Fingers Freedom Instrument Myself Vocal Word
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
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 do some acting. And there’s a difference between “I do some acting” and “I’m an actor.”
TOM WAITS

Act Actor Difference Myself
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
There’s a beauty of show business. It’s the only business you can have a career in when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Beautiful Business Career Death Show Yourself
There’s nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you’re not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I’m the worst. I’m the worst at that.
TOM WAITS

Break Cry Hard Time Laughter Life People Situation Worst Yourself
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
TOM WAITS

Head Rain
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
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

Inspirational Money Musician Need Play Stage Wallet Yourself
Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.
TOM WAITS

Air Interest Song
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 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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