black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.

Tom Waits

There’s a beauty of show business. It’s the only business you can have a career in when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Beautiful Business Career Death Show Yourself
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

Brave Conjuring Invitation Room Writing Yourself
Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
TOM WAITS

Friendship Pain Reality
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
TOM WAITS

Capture End Feature Song Writing
But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.
TOM WAITS

Cold Dance Hard Music Way
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

Talk Truth Yourself
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 WAITS

Alive Hands Ideas Music Time Yourself
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

Market Myself Nervous Open People See Yourself
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS

Born Mysterious Thinking Writing Yourself
Bill Hicks – blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.
TOM WAITS

Brain Built Drive Himself Road Specialist Vision Willing
I’m always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you’re drowning, and it’s there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.
TOM WAITS

Drowning Music Rescue Sound Time Yourself
The beginning of it starts at the end.
TOM WAITS

Beginning End Start
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
TOM WAITS

Cross Wood
The way you do anything is the way you do everything.
TOM WAITS

Action Style Way Yourself
I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.
TOM WAITS

Eyes Movie Song Thinking
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
They say that I have no hits and that I’m difficult to work with. And they say that like it’s a bad thing.
TOM WAITS

Bad Difficult Myself Work
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Death Drive Man Trust Yourself
Slept all night in the cedar grove, I was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin’ for the holy grail, but there ain’t nothin’ sweeter than ridin’ the rails.
TOM WAITS

Born Myself Night Search Sleep Sweet
Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.
TOM WAITS

Devil Drink God Himself Known
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

Abundance Beneath Bury Confusion Gun Happiness Information Knowledge Money Weapon Weight
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS

Donut Name Prostitute Sound
The piano has been drinking, not me.
TOM WAITS

Drink Funny Instrument Myself Piano
Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart.
TOM WAITS

Bad Body Drink Heart Myself
All that you’ve loved is all you own.
TOM WAITS

Love One Liner Yourself
But then I’m one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.
TOM WAITS

Afraid Conversation Death Live Music Telephone
Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
TOM WAITS

Head Rain

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 put food on the table and roof overhead. But I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.

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Popular Authors

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