I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.
TOM WAITSI 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.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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I like vocal word stuff. But I don’t always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It’s more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It’s closest to the choreography of a bee. You’re freer.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
I never told the truth so i can never tell a lie.
TOM WAITS -
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS -
Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.
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 -
New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.
TOM WAITS -
Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
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.
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 -
If I exorcise my devils, all my angels may go, too.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
You’re my North Star when I’m lost and feeling blue.
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






