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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

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
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

People Scare Success 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
I was always laughing in church.
TOM WAITS

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

Funny Grave Myself Sick
Well, it’s either kiss me or kill me, that’s how I see it.
TOM WAITS

Kill Kiss Myself See
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.
TOM WAITS

Animal Goodness Man Marriage Myself Thinking Wife
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

Detail Intimate Myself Perfection Problem Thinking
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
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
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
TOM WAITS

Abundance Bury Happiness Information Quantity Wealth Weight
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
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

Admire Death Feeling People
Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.
TOM WAITS

Devil Drink God Himself Known
The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.
TOM WAITS

Culture Known Music Myself Planet Topic
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS

Arms Time 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.

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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.

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