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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.

Tom Waits

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.
TOM WAITS

Career Family Night Trick Yourself
I admit that I ain’t no angel, I admit that I ain’t no saint – I’m selfish and I’m cruel and I’m blind. If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. When they leave they’re so hard to find.
TOM WAITS

Angel Blind Finding Hard Myself Selfish
I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
TOM WAITS

Music Myself Song Wind
I don’t think that you should be perfectly candid and frank about the intimate details of your personal life with the public at large. Subsequently, it creates considerable personal problems.
TOM WAITS

Detail Intimate Myself Perfection Problem Thinking
Their memory’s like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can’t remember Tell the things you can’t forget that History puts a saint in every dream.
TOM WAITS

Dreams Memories Remember Train Yourself
There’s no prayer like desire.
TOM WAITS

Desire One Liner Prayer
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS

Donut Name Prostitute Sound
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
The Universe is making music all the time.
TOM WAITS

Music Time Universe
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork But it always comes roaring back again.
TOM WAITS

Drive Nature Roar Yourself
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
And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.
TOM WAITS

Death Earth Myself Scream
You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
TOM WAITS

Herself Learning Woman
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 average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
TOM WAITS

Average Change Life Person Time Traffic

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Waits Quotes