Tom Waits Quotations | Page 2

Every single song has its own individual character and you can't treat each song the same way, because it wants to be treated differently and there are songs that are like scared birds that you have to sneak up on over the course of months in the woods.

They called it the Terminal Bar but they had no idea that like twenty years later the place'd be filling up with terminal cases.

I'm the type of guy who'd sell you a rat's asshole for a wedding ring.

Cross my wooden leg, swear on my glass eye.

I’ve never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a Tom Waits album. I’ve got all three, and it’s never helped me.

Popular music is like a big party, and it’s a thrill sneaking in rather than being invited. Every once in a while, a guy with his shirt on inside out, wearing lipstick and a pillbox hat gets a chance to speak.

Planes and Trains and Boats and Busses Characteristically Evolve a common attitude of blue Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport And the cargo that they're carrying is you.

I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain.

There's a lot of intelligence in the hands.When you pick up a shovel, the hands know what to do. The same thing's true of sitting at the piano.

You choke my days, I'll choke yours.

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.

Living with kids is like living with a bunch of drunks. You know you really have to be on your toes all the time. Things are falling over and breaking and spilling. If you live on the second story, you really have to keep the windows shut all the time.

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.

Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?

It's hard to play with a bagpipe player. It's like an exotic bird. I love the sound, it's like strangling a goose.

If you walk with Jesus, he's gonna save your soul. You gotta keep the devil way down in the hole. He's got the fire and the fury at his command.

There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do anything during the time when I wrote no songs. I was creative, but in another way. I had ideas for songs and collected the ideas.

My wife called me a mule. She once said, "I didn't marry a man; I married a mule!" I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.

Anton brings the camera. I'll bring a tuba, wear black, not shave, and take us to a burned-down Chinese restaurant. (On being photographed by his longtime photo collaborator Anton Corbijn)

You know, we just buy music now. We don't make it any more. And that goes for just about everything. I think it's so important that people develop and subscribe to and have confidence in their own ability to make music, however rough it is.

There's truths there that spiral out of what appears to be just a word game. That's what I find mystifying about the meanings of things: they kind of unscrew themselves from the practical words.

When you say you're doing an opera, it's like when you're a seven-year-old and say, 'I'm off to Washington, Dad.' You kind of go, 'Sure. Sure you are, son.'

Folks who work here are professors. Don't replace all the knowers with guessors keep'em open they're the ears of the town

I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong… I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.

The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone

(When asked for advice for younger musicians) "Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell 'em to do that, they'll find a little pot of gold.

Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail. Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets.

If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.

There's no prayer like desire.

Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.

I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.

You want soldiers who, when they get to a river after a long march, don't start rooting for their canteen in their pack, but just dive right in.

If I want to walk out in the desert and heat up a can of beans on a fire, I still can. In those movies like Gattaca or whatever, the space age stuff is always all there is. But in the world there is never just one way of living. It's more like a big junkyard. Put it this way: I'm not afraid I'm going to end up on a space station in aluminium-foil underwear.

bringing up children was]like living with a bunch of drunks...you really have to be on your toes all the time.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than a person who tries to guess what the great American public would like, makes a compromise for the first time, and falls flat on his face… I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone else’s. That’s a difficult statement to live up to, but then I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

using parking meters as walking sticks.

Let me fall out of the window/ With confetti in my hair

God's away, God's away, God's away on business. Business!

i never told the truth so i can never tell a lie...

it seems a stray bullet actually pierced the testicle of a Union soldier and lodged itself in the ovaries of a woman standing approximately 100 ft. away. She's alright, the baby's doing fine...ofcourse the soldier's a little pissed off...

Now its raining its pouring the old man is snoring now I lay me down to sleep I hear the sirens in the street all my dreams are made of chrome I have no way to get back home I’d rather die before I wake like Marilyn Monroe and throw my dreams out in the street and the rain make ‘em grow

All that you've loved is all you own

We are all just monkeys with money and guns.

He likes a day in the studio to end, he says, "when my knees are all skinned up and my pants are wet and my hair's off to one side and I feel like I've been in the foxhole all day. I don't think comfort is good for music. It's good to come out with skinned knuckles after wrestling with something you can't see. I like it when you come home at the end of the day from recording and someone says, "What happened to your hand?" And you don't even know. When you're in that place, you can dance on a broken ankle.

I danced along a colored wind/ Dangled from a rope of sand

Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.

...and I'm standing on the corner of Fifth and Vermouth.

I was born in the back seat of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged needing a shave and shouted 'Time Square, and step on it!'

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

We are buried beneath the weight of information...

I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.

Disneyland is Vegas for children.

When it's raining you can't find enough things to catch it in. When it's not you can stand out in the middle of the street in a dress and a funny hat and nothing's gonna make it rain. I go through periods - or spells - when I'm more receptive.

If I exorcise my devils, all my angels may go, too.

On my gravestone, I want it to say, "I told you I was sick."

The moon was sharp enough to draw blood from a stone

I did my time in the jail of your arms

There's a place down the street; Seven Xs. What does that mean? Maybe it's... girls without skin.

My friends think I'm ugly, I gotta masculine face.

I'm reliable sources, I'll tell ya anything you want me to know.

I know a girl, she been married so many times, she got rice marks all over her face

Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead

All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes

I'm not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.

A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.

I just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bell-bottoms, or patchouli-oil or bean-sprouts...it rubs me up the wrong way.

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

Your old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On

Well, it's either kiss me or kill me, that's how I see it.

I've made a profound transformation. I've fashioned some cyber-underwear. I'm not scared of anything! Actually, I am scared of a few things. Cyber world is a world of adventure, a new galaxy. I'm big on adventure. But I don't assume that just because the word cyber is being used as a prefix, doesn't give it anymore value or credence. Cyber relationships have the illusion of intimacy, sometimes with the absence of intimacy. Is it better to have a conversation in a café or on the telephone?

Well you say that it's gospel, But I know that it's only church.

I walked 500 miles just to see a halo, when I opened my eyes I was blind as can be.

The beginning of it starts at the end

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 (to me, about 1986 or so)

It's cold out there, colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar Theatre on a Saturday night.

I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.

When the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane.

I've never been a fan of personality-conflict burgers and identity-crisis omelets with patchouli oil. I function very well on a diet that consists of Chicken Catastrophe and Eggs Overwhelming and a tall, cool Janitor-in-a-Drum. I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station.

but it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.

the earth is not my home, I'm just passing by

Q: What’s hard for you? A: 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. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.

Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own...

and when they pulled her from the wreck, you know, she still had on her shades

slept all night in the cedar grove, i was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin' for the holy grail, but there ain't nothin' sweeter than ridin' the rails

The ship is sinking The ship is sinking There's leak, there's a leak,in the boiler room The poor, the lame, the blind Who ore the ones that we kept in charge Killers, thieves, and lawyers God's Away, God's away God's away on Business

Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah,I drunk me a river since you tore me apart

The Music was like Electric Sugar

Misery is the River of the World

The things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. It's all out there and available for you to enjoy...and be nourished by.

It's new, it's improved, it's old fashioned.

Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces / there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier

Got 27 children I never see.

Jesus Christ, this godamn rain, will someone put me on a train.

Photos are profound because they have such short lives. They are more like fingerprints, dead leaves, rain puddles, or the corpses of flies.

He said, I'm better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.

Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone.

Well, they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you Christmas cards in June.

I took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand.

We have a deficit of wonder right now.

I really like your playing