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 WAITSYou got to tell me the brave captain Why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on?
More Tom Waits Quotes
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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 -
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS -
I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars.
TOM WAITS -
I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.
TOM WAITS -
The beginning of it starts at the end.
TOM WAITS -
A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.
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 -
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
TOM WAITS -
All that you’ve loved is all you own.
TOM WAITS -
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
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 -
We have a deficit of wonder right now.
TOM WAITS -
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS -
You’ve gotta have somebody to trust, that knows a lot.
TOM WAITS -
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