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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

You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
TOM WAITS

Herself Learning Woman
Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
TOM WAITS

Blind Imagination Myself Need Reality Requirement
Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.
TOM WAITS

Desire Memories Time
If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.
TOM WAITS

Enough Far Home Yourself
Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.
TOM WAITS

Absorb Willing Yourself
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
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
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand.
TOM WAITS

Bible Devil Hands Himself Religious
You’re innocent when you dream.
TOM WAITS

Dreams Innocence Yourself
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
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 WAITS

Career Family Night Trick Yourself
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS

Arms Time Yourself
Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
TOM WAITS

Devil God Sleep World
I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch.
TOM WAITS

Alcohol Blood Myself
I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
TOM WAITS

Lying Myself Past Secret
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 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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