I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.
TOM WAITSI 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.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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When you’re writing‚ you’re conjuring. It’s a ritual‚ and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you’re inviting into the room.
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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
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If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
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 -
I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.
TOM WAITS -
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
TOM WAITS -
You have to keep busy. After all, no dog’s ever pissed on a moving car.
TOM WAITS -
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 -
I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch.
TOM WAITS -
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
TOM WAITS -
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand.
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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 -
Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart.
TOM WAITS -
Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
TOM WAITS