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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.
- Tom Waits
#Back
#Morning
#Right
#Story
#Wake Up
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
#Go
#Know
#Looking
#Men
#Old
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
#Forget
#History
#Memory
#Remember
#See
Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
- Tom Waits
#End
#Feathers
#Nothing
#Sometimes
#Up
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
#Connected
#Everyone
#Gone
#Time
#Travel
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
#Bulb
#Imagination
#Man
#Reality
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
#Never
#People
#See
#Stand
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
#Car
#Feel
#Hungry
#Love
#Silver
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
#Like
#Myself
#Poetry
#Reporter
#Would
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
#America
#Hood
#Insects
#Looking
#See
I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have.
- Tom Waits
#Always
#Down
#Guess
#Upside Down
#Want
Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.
- Tom Waits
#Champagne
#Friends
#Pain
#Real
#Sham
I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
- Tom Waits
#Disneyland
#Hate
#Kids
#Our
#Vegas
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
#Build
#Building
#Know
#Place
#Watching
The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
- Tom Waits
#Away
#Big
#Giveth
#Print
#Small
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
#Adjust
#Life
#Moment
#Music
#Ocean
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
#Listening
#School
#See
#Try
#Wonder
When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.
- Tom Waits
#I Am
#Now
#Quite
#Sure
#Younger
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. You find that out really fast.
- Tom Waits
#Care
#Fast
#Lie
#Long
#Truth
I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
- Tom Waits
#Bottle
#Free
#Front
#Me
#Rather
I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out.
- Tom Waits
#Better
#Crack
#Dawn
#Out
#Watch
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.
- Tom Waits
#Care
#Lie
#Long
#People
#Truth
We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
- Tom Waits
#Confused
#Happiness
#Knowledge
#Wealth
My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
- Tom Waits
#Blind
#Imagination
#Man
#Needs
#Reality
Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.
- Tom Waits
#Devil
#Drunk
#God
#He
#Know
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