Tom Waits Quotes
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I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong… I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.
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We are all just monkeys with money and guns.
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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.
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I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
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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.
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It's cold out there, colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar Theatre on a Saturday night.
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Well, they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you Christmas cards in June.
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Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.
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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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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.
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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.
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I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
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Misery is the River of the World
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If you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal.
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The Universe is making music all the time.
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I really like your playing
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My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.
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I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch
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Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
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Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.
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There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.
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What you want is for music to love you back. That's why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you belong and are part of this symbiosis, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it.
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I admit that I ain't no angel, I admit that I ain't no saint - I'm selfish and I'm cruel and I'm blind. If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. When they leave they're so hard to find.
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Disneyland is Vegas for children.
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Words are music, really.
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Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.
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I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars
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Now it's closing time/the music's fading out.
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Don't plant your days they turn into weeds
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It was a hubba, hubba, ding dang, baby you are just everythang.
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