Tom Waits Quotes - Page 4

You're my North Star when I'm lost and feeling blue.

Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?

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.

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.

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.

I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I'd trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.

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.

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.

She's a shiksa goddess and a trapeze artist, all of that. She can fix the truck...she's outta this world...she's bold, inventive and fearless. That's who you wanna go in the woods with, right? Somebody who finishes your sentences for you.

A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.

The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand...

I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.

I like vocal word stuff. But I don't always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It's more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It's closest to the choreography of a bee. You're freer.

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.

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.

I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. My wife actually thinks I have a syndrome called Reality Distortion Field. It's kind of like drugs, only you can't come back from it. Reality Distortion is almost a permanent condition. Things come in and they go out: Presto, chango! To a certain extent, I did that with myself. 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.

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.

The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.

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

I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.

And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.

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.

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

Don't plant your days they turn into weeds

The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you "know" about me is only what I allowed you to know about me.