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The ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.

Tom Waits

The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
TOM WAITS

Average Change Life Person Time Traffic
I was always laughing in church.
TOM WAITS

Laughter Myself Religious
I dunno when I started writing really. I was, like, filling out applications and stuff real early. Last name first, first name last, sex. ‘occasionally’ , stuff like that. Then I was writing letters, filling out forms, writing on bathroom walls.
TOM WAITS

Application Fill Myself Sex Start Writing
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you’re dead.
TOM WAITS

Death Drive Man Trust Yourself
I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.
TOM WAITS

Eyes Movie Song Thinking
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

Learning Listening Oneself Song Wonder Writing
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
TOM WAITS

Hate Myself Prime
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
TOM WAITS

Cross Wood
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 don’t go to church on Sunday, don’t get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way
TOM WAITS

Myself Prayer Religious
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’ll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
TOM WAITS

Initial Myself Scratch
I don’t like hearing Beatles songs in commercials. It almost renders them useless. I think, ‘Oh God, another one bites the dust.’
TOM WAITS

Commercial Oneself Song
Their memory’s like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can’t remember Tell the things you can’t forget that History puts a saint in every dream.
TOM WAITS

Dreams Memories Remember Train Yourself
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick
We have a deficit of wonder right now.
TOM WAITS

Imagination Right Wonder

The ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.

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The ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Waits Quotes