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 WAITSI hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
More Tom Waits Quotes
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I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.
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I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.
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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.
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I’m trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It’s like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.
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You can drive out nature with a pitch fork But it always comes roaring back again.
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It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.
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The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
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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.
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Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.
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I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.
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I’m always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you’re drowning, and it’s there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.
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When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.
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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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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.
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On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”
TOM WAITS