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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

I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.
TOM WAITS

Couple Myself Song Thinking Weather
Never have your wallet with you onstage. It’s bad luck. You shouldn’t play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.
TOM WAITS

Inspirational Money Musician Need Play Stage Wallet Yourself
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
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
I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
TOM WAITS

Freedom Myself Science
I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
TOM WAITS

Affect Audience Believe Important Myself Way
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
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
The piano has been drinking, not me.
TOM WAITS

Drink Funny Instrument Myself Piano
Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me – choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothing.
TOM WAITS

Bad Day Growth Plant Yourself
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

Guard Life Myself Ocean Play
You have to keep busy. After all, no dog’s ever pissed on a moving car.
TOM WAITS

Busy Car Dog Move Yourself
I did my time in the jail of your arms.
TOM WAITS

Arms Time Yourself
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 look back, because someone might be gaining on you.
TOM WAITS

Back Sight Yourself
It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
TOM WAITS

Born Mysterious Thinking Writing Yourself
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
TOM WAITS

Hate Myself Prime
I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong. I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.
TOM WAITS

Hear Ideas Myself Wrong
I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.
TOM WAITS

Guy Ring Sell Type
Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.
TOM WAITS

Gospel Myself Religious Yourself
It’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.
TOM WAITS

Avoid Habit Hard Old Scatter Stop Togetherness Yourself
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

Listening Music Mysekf Place Procession Time
I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
TOM WAITS

Music Myself Song Wind
I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.
TOM WAITS

Inspirational Myself Poor Reach Start
On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS

Funny Grave Myself Sick
You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.
TOM WAITS

Children Learning 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.

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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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