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Tom Waits

Tom Waits Quotes

Singer-songwriter

Tom Waits, born on December 7, 1949, is an influential American singer-songwriter and actor. Known for his unique musical style that blends blues, jazz, folk, and country elements, he is often referred to as 'the oddball of American music.' Waits is renowned for his distinctive voice and expressive lyrics, and his work has earned high praise in both the music and literary worlds.

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All Knows Ifs Thinking Song Way Want People Writing Bigs Hands

Famous Tom Waits Quotes

“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.”

Way Needs Writing Sometimes Rooms Brave Ritual Be Brave Respectful Inviting Conjuring

Author:Tom Waits

“I'm trying to learn how to write faster.”

Writing Trying Faster

Author:Tom Waits

“That for me is more important than anything when you're in the studio - to have somebody you can trust and who knows you, knows who you are and doesn't let you get away with anything.”

Knows Important Who You Are Studios Get Away

Author:Tom Waits

“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.”

Men Needs Reality Imagination Blind My Imagination Bulbs Blind Man

Author:Tom Waits

“We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.”

Happiness Wealth Knowledge Information Weight Confusion Confused Abundance Buried Quantity Singer Songwriters Money Can't Buy Happiness Too Much Information Information Overload Being Confused

Author:Tom Waits

“Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains.”

Years Made Lasts Grows Brain Millions Dog Madness Versions Farmers Last Year Dean Ohio

Author:Tom Waits

“Chevrolet was puzzled when they discovered that their sales for the Chevy Nova were off the charts everywhere but in Latin America. They finally realized that "Nova" in Spanish translates to "no go." Not the best name for a car... anywhere "no va."”

America Names Car Latin Translate Latin America Puzzled Chevy Novas Chevrolet

Author:Tom Waits

“I was a fireman. I lived in the fire station for about a year. The pay wasn't so good. It was kind of like being in the army, or what I imagine that would be like.”

Kind Imagine Army Imagine That Fireman

Author:Tom Waits

“It wasn't good for my nerves, that kind of work - a fireman. I've got high blood pressure. I get upset easily. I don't think that was a proper career alternative for me.”

Thinking Kind Upset Fireman Blood Pressure

Author:Tom Waits

“I never looked at music as a serious venture. There was very little encouragement from my family. I didn't have anybody to entertain, so it was hard to get motivated.”

Serious My Family Encouragement Motivated

Author:Tom Waits

“I don't think that you should be perfectly candid and frank about the intimate details of your personal life with the public at large. Subsequently, it creates considerable personal problems.”

Thinking Problem Intimate Frank Personal Life Personal Problems

Author:Tom Waits

“Unfortunately, I made the mistake at one point of putting my address on the back of one of my albums, just to find out what would happen. I received a lot of disturbing mail and calls. Actually, I was living in a hotel, so it was easy enough to find the number. I got a kick out of it for a while. Then I realized what I'd done.”

Done Enough Easy Mistake I Realized Hotel

Author:Tom Waits

“Francis Ford Coppola is completely unconventional. He has a strong sense of loyalty. Great eyes. It's a diabolical undertaking in terms of organization and leadership.”

Eye Strong Term Loyalty

Author:Tom Waits

“In terms of black music - the only music that we can call our own, that was really born here - I don't think a lot has been done to chronicle the relations between American history and where black music fits in.”

Thinking Done Black Term Fit Relation American History

Author:Tom Waits

“Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.”

Real Pain Friends Beer Real Friends Champagne Funny Drinking Drinking Wine Wine Toast Drinking Toast Champagne Drinking Wine With Friends Wine And Friends Witty Wine Drinking Cheers Real Pain

Author:Tom Waits

“Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.”

Knows Religion Atheism Devil Alcohol Drunk

Author:Tom Waits

“George Bush is a fan of mine, he came to see me in the Seventies. His coke dealer brought him.”

Fans Mines Seventies Dealer Coke

Author:Tom Waits

“I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess.”

Book Physicians Anatomy

Author:Tom Waits

“I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out.”

Watches Dawn Cracks Horny

Author: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.”

Ifs Trying Made School Wonder Listening Tunes Songwriting Songwriters

Author:Tom Waits

“I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.”

Fronts Drinking Beer Bottles Lobotomy

Author: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.”

Thinking Should Song Names Streets Couple Should Have Towns Weather Sailor Prerequisites

Author:Tom Waits

“I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We're all looking at the wrapping. But we won't tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath.”

Ideas Bigs America Lying Tears Insects Hood Crawling Facade Wrapping Cadillacs

Author:Tom Waits

“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.”

Dream Remember Memories Forget Train Saint

Author:Tom Waits

“Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.”

Way Sometimes Certain Song Impossible Demand Magnetism

Author:Tom Waits

“The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.”

Bigs Money Print Small Print

Author:Tom Waits

“I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have.”

Want I Can Upside Down Timer Things Upside Down

Author:Tom Waits

“My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.”

Men Needs Reality Imagination Blind My Imagination Bulbs Blind Man Sugar Cane

Author:Tom Waits

“I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It's just for you.”

Knows Kind Saws Building Vulnerable Nests Crow Stalking

Author:Tom Waits

“Most people don't care if you're telling them the truth or if you're telling them a lie, as long as they're entertained by it.”

People Ifs Long Care Lying Don't Care

Author:Tom Waits

“As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.”

Want Stories Bigs Kids Wanted Clothes Back In Time Go Back In Time Timer Old Timers

Author:Tom Waits

“I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.”

Kids Hate I Hate Vegas Las Vegas Disneyland

Author:Tom Waits

“It's hard to win when you always lose.”

Hard Winning Loses

Author:Tom Waits

“Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a bubble. Everyone who's connected with it, the studio's gone, the musicians are gone, and the only thing that's left is this recording which was only about a three-minute period maybe 70 years ago.”

Years Form Song Three Left Gone Minutes Periods Musician Years Ago Moved Studios Connected Bubbles Rock N Roll Time Travel

Author:Tom Waits

“Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting.”

Certain Amount Involved Heavy Awkward Lifting Heavy Lifting

Author:Tom Waits

“You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like it's hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it wants more silver discs.”

Knows Want Feels Hands Player Car Hungry Silver Cds Discs Cd Players

Author:Tom Waits

“Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop.”

Ifs Knows Know How Eavesdropping

Author:Tom Waits

“Don't look back, because someone might be gaining on you.”

Author:Tom Waits

“Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.”

Song Tales Goodbye Rope Lullaby Cautionary Tales Jump Rope

Author:Tom Waits

“All records are riddles, and whatever you may want people to think it's about, it may just be throwing them off. And you don't want it to get in the way of what someone else's understanding is. It's not really about anything. At the same time, it will find some meaning.”

People Thinking Way Want May Understanding Records Throwing Riddle

Author:Tom Waits

“The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.”

Knows Whole Would Be Culture Tree Planets Impact Musical Enormous Indispensable Topics Indelible

Author:Tom Waits

“George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved.”

Performers Vaudeville

Author:Tom Waits

“I'm just trying to make a buck like everyone else.”

Author:Tom Waits

“The piano has been drinking, not me.”

Has Beens Music Drinking Piano Playing Music Drugs And Alcohol Funny Music Playing Piano Piano Music Piano Playing

Author:Tom Waits

“But then I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.”

Ifs Stills Might Guy Bits Wonder Conversation Telephones Implications Live Music Jukebox

Author:Tom Waits

“Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder.”

Thinking Writing I Can Stories Hands Seems Form Song Interesting Morning Wake Up Tape Bats Recorders Calcium Suspenders

Author:Tom Waits

“The sight of the first woman in the minimal two-piece was as explosive as the detonation of the atomic bomb by the U.S. at Bikini Island in the Marshall Isles, hence the naming of the bikini.”

Firsts Two Pieces Sight Islands Bombs Explosives Atomic Bomb Bikinis Isle

Author:Tom Waits

“You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It's like that with music - parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Should Shows Together Party Wonder Mets Musical

Author:Tom Waits

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

Wells Kissing Kill Me Kiss Me

Author:Tom Waits

“I've been riding on the crest of a slump lately.”

Author:Tom Waits

About the Author

Born: December 7, 1949
Known for: Singer-songwriter
Quotes: 290

Related Topics

Knows Ifs Thinking Song Way Want People Writing Bigs Hands

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Early Years: The Lyrics of Tom Waits 1971-1983Related source material

The Early Years: The Lyrics, 1971-1983Related source material

Tom Waits: Mule Variations Piano, Vocal and Guitar ChordsRelated source material

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