Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I didn't really want to be part of a clique or a niche. But I also was looking for my own voice, as a writer, y'know? And a world I could call my own. "
Tom Waits
My Own
Own
Looking
Related Quotes:
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Wonder
Music
Conversation
" 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. "
Tom Waits
See
America
Always
" I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. "
Tom Waits
Want
Always
Down
" George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved. "
Tom Waits
Performer
Burns
Loved
" I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out. "
Tom Waits
Watch
Out
Horny
" Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting. "
Tom Waits
Music
Heavy
Involved
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Conversation
Music
Wonder
" Don't look back, because someone might be gaining on you. "
Tom Waits
Back
Someone
You
" I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess. "
Tom Waits
Books
Like
Physician
" I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary. "
Tom Waits
Jazz
Appreciation
Think
" I have a Chamberlain I bought from some surfers in Westwood many years ago. It's an early analog synthesizer; it operates on tape loops. It has 60 voices - everything from galloping horses to owls to rain to every instrument in the orchestra. "
Tom Waits
Early
Everything
Orchestra
" 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. "
Tom Waits
You
Brave
Need
" Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs. "
Tom Waits
Goodbye
Most
Road
" 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. "
Tom Waits
You
Feel
Hungry
" I look for things that are left of center, something you've only seen your whole life, but never heard. Hit it! With a stick! I have a guitar made out of a 2x4 that I bought in Cleveland. "
Tom Waits
Look
Never
Left
" Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers. "
Tom Waits
End
Birds
Feathers
" You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way. "
Tom Waits
You
Create
Way
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Sound
Back
Like
" I don't really like listening to the radio so much. "
Tom Waits
Really
Radio
Like
" I think I have an adrenaline addiction, no question about that. "
Tom Waits
Question
Think
Addiction
" I don't like the word 'poetry,' and I don't like poetry readings, and I usually don't like poets. I would much prefer describing myself and what I do as: I'm kind of a curator, and I'm kind of a night-owl reporter. "
Tom Waits
Kind
Word
Poetry
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Think
People
Understanding
" I don't know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla. "
Tom Waits
Change
Kind
Know
" Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk. "
Tom Waits
Just
God
Drunk
" 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. "
Tom Waits
You
Wonder
School
" I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox. "
Tom Waits
Ray
Years
Restaurant
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Time
Musicians
Travel
" The only thing worse than being in the Hall of Fame is not being in the Hall of Fame. "
Tom Waits
Hall
Fame
Being
" I didn't really identify with the music of my own generation, but I was very curious about the music of others. "
Tom Waits
Music
My Own
Own
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Blind
Reality
Man