Tom Waits Quotes - Page 2

When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes

Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.

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.

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.

They have removed the struggle to find anything. And therefore there is no genuine sense of discovery. Struggle is the first thing we know getting along the birth canal, out in the world. It's pretty basic. Book store owners and record store owners used to be oracles, in that way; you'd go in this dusty old place and they might point you toward something that would change your life. All that's gone.

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

The beginning of it starts at the end

I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.

Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.

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

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

All that you've loved is all you own

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.

I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.

Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.

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.

The trick is to have a career and have a family. It's like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.

They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing.

Jimmy Stewart said he stopped making movies because he didn't like the way he looked on screen anymore. I'm more the guy who says I look like hell but I'm going to see where it gets me.

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.

This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. "Oh, it's just a couple little innocent bad days." Well, we had a big rain. I don't know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothin'. They're your days. Choke 'em!

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