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 WAITSWriting songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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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 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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We have a deficit of wonder right now.
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The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand.
TOM WAITS -
The folks who know the truth aren’t talking. The ones who don’t have a clue, you can’t shut them up!
TOM WAITS -
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
TOM WAITS -
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS -
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS -
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.
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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.
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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 -
There’s always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.
TOM WAITS -
Most people don’t care if you’re telling them the truth or if you’re telling them a lie, as long as they’re entertained by it.
TOM WAITS -
Well, it’s either kiss me or kill me, that’s how I see it.
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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