black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

Tom Waits

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
TOM WAITS

Friendship Pain Reality
I do some acting. And there’s a difference between “I do some acting” and “I’m an actor.”
TOM WAITS

Act Actor Difference Myself
it ain’t no sin, to take off your skin and dance around in your bones
TOM WAITS

Bone Dance Sin Skin Yourself
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

Ability Confidence Important Music Rough Thinking Yourself
Don’t plant your days they turn into weeds.
TOM WAITS

Day Plant 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
I’ve lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.
TOM WAITS

Balance Car Myself Pride
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

Fingers Freedom Instrument Myself Vocal Word
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

Care Entertainment Lying People Truth Yourself
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
There’s nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you’re not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I’m the worst. I’m the worst at that.
TOM WAITS

Break Cry Hard Time Laughter Life People Situation Worst Yourself
I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
TOM WAITS

Live Myself
I 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.
TOM WAITS

Floor Machine Myself Pieces
I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.
TOM WAITS

Guy Ring Sell Type
I’ve been riding on the crest of a slump lately.
TOM WAITS

Late Myself Ride
All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
TOM WAITS

Donut Name Prostitute Sound
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

Arithmetic Boat Finding Hands Hold Myself Ocean
I never told the truth so i can never tell a lie.
TOM WAITS

Lying Myself Talk Truth
I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We’re all looking at the wrapping. But we won’t tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath.
TOM WAITS

Ideas Insect Lying Myself See
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS

Arms Time Yourself
I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I’m a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.
TOM WAITS

Appreciation Greatness Music Myself Vocabulary
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
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
Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
TOM WAITS

Devil God Sleep World
Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.
TOM WAITS

Desire Memories Time
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS

Freedom Myself Science
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick

For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Waits Quotes