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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

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
I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.
TOM WAITS

Eyes Movie Song Thinking
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
Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.
TOM WAITS

Devil Drink God Himself Known
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
TOM WAITS

Abundance Bury Happiness Information Quantity Wealth Weight
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
TOM WAITS

Bad Destroy Hell Ourselves Place Suffering World Writing
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
The beginning of it starts at the end.
TOM WAITS

Beginning End Start
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Death Drive Man Trust Yourself
I like Thelonious Monk, he’s so gnarled, he’s like a piece of machinery that’s pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.
TOM WAITS

Floor Machine Myself Pieces
Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.
TOM WAITS

Desire Memories Time
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS

Arms 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
Don’t plant your days they turn into weeds.
TOM WAITS

Day Plant Yourself
A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.
TOM WAITS

Dumb Intelligence Mental
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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