I’m trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It’s like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.
TOM WAITSI’m not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me – choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothing.
TOM WAITS -
Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart.
TOM WAITS -
She’s got the whole dark forest living inside of her.
TOM WAITS -
I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS -
The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
TOM WAITS -
I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
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?
TOM WAITS -
New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.
TOM WAITS -
Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
TOM WAITS -
If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
TOM WAITS -
The earth is not my home, I’m just passing by.
TOM WAITS -
Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.
TOM WAITS -
A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.
TOM WAITS -
When your down on your luck and you’ve lost all your dreams theres nothing like a campfire and a can of beans.
TOM WAITS -
And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.
TOM WAITS -
I’ve been riding on the crest of a slump lately.
TOM WAITS -
I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
You’re innocent when you dream.
TOM WAITS -
Don’t look back, because someone might be gaining on you.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS