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 WAITSIt’s very hard to stop doing things you’re used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits.
More Tom Waits Quotes
-
-
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 -
The Universe is making music all the time.
TOM WAITS -
I do some acting. And there’s a difference between “I do some acting” and “I’m an actor.”
TOM WAITS -
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork But it always comes roaring back again.
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 -
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.
TOM WAITS -
The earth is not my home, I’m just passing by.
TOM WAITS -
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS -
I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
TOM WAITS -
Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
TOM WAITS -
If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.
TOM WAITS -
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.
TOM WAITS -
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






