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" I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page. Some people write for the page, and that's a whole other thing. I'm going for what it sounds like right away, so it may not even look good on the page. "

Tom Waits

People

Some People

Page

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" George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved. "

" My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. "

Tom Waits

Reality

Man

" 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. "

" 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

" I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess. "

Tom Waits

Books

Physician

" Most people don't care if you're telling them the truth or if you're telling them a lie, as long as they're entertained by it. "

" Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends. "

" Don't look back, because someone might be gaining on you. "

" I think this whole division between the genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It's terrible for the culture of music. "

Tom Waits

Music

Culture

" You hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone. "

" 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. "

" Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder. "

" 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. "

" George Bush is a fan of mine, he came to see me in the Seventies. His coke dealer brought him. "

" I didn't really identify with the music of my own generation, but I was very curious about the music of others. "

" I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. "

" I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong - I have audio illusions. "

" I don't really like listening to the radio so much. "

Tom Waits

Really

Radio

" If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment. "

" I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out. "

" I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox. "

" I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites. "

" Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop. "

" I think I have an adrenaline addiction, no question about that. "

" If you're a writer, you know that the stories don't come to you - you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were. "

Tom Waits

Looking

Know

" If you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal. "

" Oh, I got a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille four-door. No one will ride in it with me. "

Tom Waits

Beautiful

Ride

" We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. "

" I'm just trying to make a buck like everyone else. "

" 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. "