Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
TOM WAITSWe have a deficit of wonder right now.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
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I’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
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You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.
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The earth is not my home, I’m just passing by.
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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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Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
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Don’t plant your days they turn into weeds.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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The piano has been drinking, not me.
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The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
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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.
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But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.
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I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
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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.
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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 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.
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I did my time in the jail of your arms.
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We are all just monkeys with money and guns.
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The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.
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It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
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Never have your wallet with you onstage. It’s bad luck. You shouldn’t play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.
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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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Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.
TOM WAITS