I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess.
Oh, I got a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille four-door. No one will ride in it with me.
She pulls a razor from her boot and a thousand victims fall around her feet.
The things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. It's all out there and available for you to enjoy...and be nourished by.
If you record the sound of bacon in a frying pan and play it back, it sounds like the pops and cracks on an old 33 1/3 recording. Almost exactly like that. You could substitute it for that sound.
I'm not one of those people the tabloids chase around.
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.
Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were writing songs because you can do it while getting your hair cut.
We are buried beneath the weight of information.
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
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.
using parking meters as walking sticks.
My wife, when I met her, she had a remarkable record collection. And they were all still in their sleeves! I couldn't believe it. She took care of her records. Rachmaninov, Beefheart. For me, most of my records were out of their sleeves and in a drawer somewhere. I married a record collection.
I think I have an adrenaline addiction, no question about that.
I took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand.
I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.
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.
I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.
I finally discovered that my life is more important than show business.
My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.
I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
I know a girl, she been married so many times, she got rice marks all over her face
I think some bands thrive on the idea of changing instruments. When they're off their real instrument, the ability to go very far from the original idea is reduced.
Cross my wooden leg, swear on my glass eye.
With families and music, you're usually looking for something that can make you unique.
