Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" The piano has been drinking, not me. "
Tom Waits
Me
Drinking
Been
Related Quotes:
" I bark my voice out through a closed throat, pretty much. It's more, perhaps, like a dog in some ways. It does have its limitations, but I'm learning different ways to keep it alive. "
Tom Waits
Voice
More
Like
" I don't like listening to records a lot after they're done. There's just no real nourishment there for me. "
Tom Waits
Like
Done
Real
" George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved. "
Tom Waits
Performer
Burns
Loved
" The big print giveth and the small print taketh away. "
Tom Waits
Big
Giveth
Print
" Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk. "
Tom Waits
Just
God
Drunk
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Memory
Remember
History
" 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. "
Tom Waits
You
Adjust
Life
" The sight of the first woman in the minimal two-piece was as explosive as the detonation of the atomic bomb by the U.S. at Bikini Island in the Marshall Isles, hence the naming of the bikini. "
Tom Waits
Island
Woman
Atomic Bomb
" I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out. "
Tom Waits
Watch
Out
Horny
" I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. "
Tom Waits
Want
Always
Down
" 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
" George Bush is a fan of mine, he came to see me in the Seventies. His coke dealer brought him. "
Tom Waits
Dealer
Coke
Seventies
" My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult. "
Tom Waits
Show
Think
Opening
" I used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M. "
Tom Waits
Happened
Used
Think
" 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
" 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
More
Music
Culture
" 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
Go
" Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way. "
Tom Waits
Ignore
Way
Song
" If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it's good. I'm not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don't cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don't stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you'll never see it again. "
Tom Waits
Good
Baseball
People
" Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like 'Chicago' is a very musical sounding name. "
Tom Waits
Music
Chicago
Name
" Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting. "
Tom Waits
Music
Heavy
Involved
" 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. "
Tom Waits
Someone
You
Place
" 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
" When you're a kid and you're trying to find your own voice, it's rather daunting to hear somebody like Howlin' Wolf, because you know that you'll never achieve that. "
Tom Waits
Know
Voice
Trying
" I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas. "
Tom Waits
Our
Kids
Hate
" You hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone. "
Tom Waits
Listening
Better
Hope
" Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs. "
Tom Waits
Goodbye
Most
Road
" Don't look back, because someone might be gaining on you. "
Tom Waits
Back
Someone
You
" 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
" If you are making a record, you are the one saying 'action', and you are the one saying 'cut,' and you have to be sure that the most interesting thing is not going on outside the frame. "
Tom Waits
Action
You
Saying