110+ Tom Waits Quotes On Fun, Gruff And Eclectic

Tom Waits is an American musician, singer-songwriter and actor. He is known for his distinctive voice, songwriting style, and eclectic mix of musical genres, including blues, jazz, vaudeville and experimental rock. His career began in the early 1970s and he has since released over 20 studio albums. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Tom Waits on life, love, fun.

Top 10 Tom Waits Quotes

1. A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.
2. Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothing.
3. when your down on your luck and you've lost all your dreams theres nothing like a campfire and a can of beans
4. I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.
5. I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.
6. The folks who know the truth aren't talking.... The ones who don't have a clue, you can't shut them up!
7. You have to keep busy. After all, no dog's ever pissed on a moving car.
8. The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
9. I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
10. If you get far enough away you'll be on your way back home.

Tom Waits Image Quotes

I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things. — Tom Waits

If you get far enough away you'll be on your way back home. — Tom Waits

Tom Waits Short Quotes

• You're my North Star when I'm lost and feeling blue.
• I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.
• Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.
• I'll be clickin' by your house about two forty-five, Sidewalk Sundae Strawberry Surprise.
• The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
• All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
• I'm the type of guy who'd sell you a rat's asshole for a wedding ring.
• I made a wish on a sliver of moonlight A sly grin and a bowl full of stars
• I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
• For a songwriter, you dont really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes.

Tom Waits Quotes About Life

I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink. — Tom Waits

I'm not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here. — Tom Waits

There's nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you're not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I'm the worst. I'm the worst at that. — Tom Waits

On my gravestone, I want it to say, "I told you I was sick." — Tom Waits

The ocean doesn't want me today, But I'll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard's away But the ocean doesn't want me today — Tom Waits

Photos are profound because they have such short lives. They are more like fingerprints, dead leaves, rain puddles, or the corpses of flies. — Tom Waits

People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They're no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail. — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

I finally discovered that my life is more important than show business. — Tom Waits

Tom Waits Quotes About Love

It's hard to play with a bagpipe player. It's like an exotic bird. I love the sound, it's like strangling a goose. — Tom Waits

George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved. — Tom Waits

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

What you want is for music to love you back. That's why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you belong and are part of this symbiosis, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it. — Tom Waits

It was a hubba, hubba, ding dang, baby you are just everythang. — Tom Waits

All that you've loved is all you own — Tom Waits

Tom Waits Quotes About Dream

Now its raining its pouring the old man is snoring now I lay me down to sleep I hear the sirens in the street all my dreams are made of chrome I have no way to get back home I’d rather die before I wake like Marilyn Monroe and throw my dreams out in the street and the rain make ‘em grow — Tom Waits

Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream. — Tom Waits

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

You're innocent when you dream. — Tom Waits

And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming. — Tom Waits

Tom Waits Famous Quotes And Sayings

I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things. — Tom Waits

If you get far enough away you'll be on your way back home. — Tom Waits

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

It's very hard to stop doing things you're used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits. — Tom Waits

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

Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well. — Tom Waits

Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don't care if they lose it; they'll just make another one. — Tom Waits

The trick is to have a career and have a family. It's like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night. — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier. — Tom Waits

slept all night in the cedar grove, i was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin' for the holy grail, but there ain't nothin' sweeter than ridin' the rails — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

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

You got to tell me the brave captain Why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on? — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning, and it's there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music. — Tom Waits

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

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

It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born. — Tom Waits

Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains. — Tom Waits

I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas. — Tom Waits

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

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

The piano has been drinking, not me. — Tom Waits

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers. — Tom Waits

I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. — Tom Waits

Most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit that remains the object of their long relentless quest. The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending, the pursuit you see and never the arrest" - Tom Waits "Foreign Affairs — Tom Waits

I think some bands thrive on the idea of changing instruments. When they're off their real instrument, the ability to go very far from the original idea is reduced. — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

It seems a stray bullet actually pierced the testicle of a Union soldier and lodged itself in the ovaries of a woman standing approximately 100 ft. away. She's alright, the baby's doing fine...ofcourse the soldier's a little pissed off. — Tom Waits

Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were writing songs because you can do it while getting your hair cut. — Tom Waits

I was born in the back seat of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged needing a shave and shouted 'Time Square, and step on it!' — Tom Waits

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends. — Tom Waits

Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way. — Tom Waits

If I exorcise my devils, all my angels may go, too. — Tom Waits

I can't listen to so much music at the same time. I think you really have to have a diet. You're just processing too much, there's no place to put it. If you go a long time without hearing music, then you hear music that nobody else hears. — Tom Waits

Jimmy Stewart said he stopped making movies because he didn't like the way he looked on screen anymore. I'm more the guy who says I look like hell but I'm going to see where it gets me. — Tom Waits

The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese melodies and vocal styles that sound very much like Hungarian music. You start seeing all these cross-references and comparative, independent musical cultures. — Tom Waits

I'm so horny the crack of dawn better watch out. — Tom Waits

It's a battered old suitcase and a hotel someplace and a wound that will never heal. — Tom Waits

It's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace, and a wound that will never heal. No prima donna, the perfume is on an old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey. Goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers and goodnight, Matilda, too. — Tom Waits

I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride. — Tom Waits

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

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

I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain. — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

It's the same with men as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die. — Tom Waits

A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post. — Tom Waits

Chevrolet was puzzled when they discovered that their sales for the Chevy Nova were off the charts everywhere but in Latin America. They finally realized that "Nova" in Spanish translates to "no go." Not the best name for a car... anywhere "no va." — Tom Waits

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

I was always laughing in church. — Tom Waits

I've been riding on the crest of a slump lately. — Tom Waits

I dunno when I started writing really. I was, like, filling out applications and stuff real early. Last name first, first name last, sex. 'occasionally' , stuff like that. Then I was writing letters, filling out forms, writing on bathroom walls. — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch — Tom Waits

The big print giveth and the small print taketh away. — Tom Waits

I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture. — Tom Waits

Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain. — Tom Waits

Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs. — Tom Waits

the earth is not my home, I'm just passing by — Tom Waits

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

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 first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult. — Tom Waits

I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong - I have audio illusions. — Tom Waits

We are buried beneath the weight of information. — Tom Waits

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. — Tom Waits

Now it's closing time/the music's fading out. — Tom Waits

Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop. — Tom Waits

I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way — Tom Waits

I think I have an adrenaline addiction, no question about that. — Tom Waits

God's away, God's away, God's away on business. Business! — Tom Waits

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

Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell 'em to do that, they'll find a little pot of gold. — Tom Waits

I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go. — Tom Waits

New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations. — Tom Waits

My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. — Tom Waits

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

I took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand. — Tom Waits

I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train. — Tom Waits

Your old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On — Tom Waits

Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting. — Tom Waits

When the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane. — Tom Waits

Life Lessons by Tom Waits

1. Tom Waits teaches us to appreciate the beauty of life in all its imperfections, as he often sings about the beauty of imperfection and the simple joys of life.
2. He also encourages us to be persistent and never give up, as he has been making music for over four decades and continues to be a creative force in the music industry.
3. Finally, he emphasizes the importance of staying true to yourself and your art, as he has always stayed true to his unique sound and style, even when it wasn't popular or mainstream.