The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you “know” about me is only what I allowed you to know about me.
TOM WAITSI’ve been riding on the crest of a slump lately.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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I’m just trying to make a buck like everyone else.
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Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.
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If I exorcise my devils, all my angels may go, too.
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Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.
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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.
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Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don’t get out much. It’s true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.
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I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
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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.
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Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don’t care if they lose it; they’ll just make another one.
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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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Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
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You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.
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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.
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My wife called me a mule. She once said, “I didn’t marry a man; I married a mule!” I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.
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There’s a beauty of show business. It’s the only business you can have a career in when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS