I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch.
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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If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
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I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
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Well, it’s either kiss me or kill me, that’s how I see it.
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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.
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The trick is to have a career and have a family. It’s like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.
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New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.
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I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars.
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I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong – I have audio illusions.
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Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me – choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothing.
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Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
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I don’t have a drinking problem ‘Cept when I can’t get a drink.
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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.
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I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
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Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
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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.
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I was always laughing in church.
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The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
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The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you “know” about me is only what I allowed you to know about me.
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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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Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
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The Universe is making music all the time.
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We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.
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I’m always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you’re drowning, and it’s there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.
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Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.
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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.
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On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS