My wife called me a mule. She once said, “I didn’t marry a man; I married a mule!” I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.
TOM WAITSThe 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.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
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All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
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The Universe is making music all the time.
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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.
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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.
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When you’re writing‚ you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual‚ and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room.
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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.
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I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.
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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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I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.
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A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
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You 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?
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All that you’ve loved is all you own.
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The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
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If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it’s good. I’m not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don’t cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don’t stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you’ll never see it again.
TOM WAITS