Tom Waits Quotes

A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.

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.

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

when your down on your luck and you've lost all your dreams theres nothing like a campfire and a can of beans

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

The folks who know the truth aren't talking.... The ones who don't have a clue, you can't shut them up!

I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

Once upon a time there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. And they grew next to each other. And every day the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and he would say, "You're crooked. You've always been crooked and you'll continue to be crooked. But look at me! Look at me!" said the straight tree. He said, "I'm tall and I'm straight." And then one day the lumberjacks came into the forest and looked around, and the manager in charge said, "Cut all the straight trees." And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange.

You have to keep busy. After all, no dog's ever pissed on a moving car.

Everything is explained now. We live in an age when you say casually to somebody 'What's the story on that?' and they can run to the computer and tell you within five seconds. That's fine, but sometimes I’d just as soon continue wondering. We have a deficit of wonder right now.

When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.

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.

The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.

Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.

I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.

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.

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

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.

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.

I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

I always thought songs are movies for the ears and films are like songs for the eyes.

They have removed the struggle to find anything. And therefore there is no genuine sense of discovery. Struggle is the first thing we know getting along the birth canal, out in the world. It's pretty basic. Book store owners and record store owners used to be oracles, in that way; you'd go in this dusty old place and they might point you toward something that would change your life. All that's gone.

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

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

You cannot really be too concerned with what people think of you. You're on your own adventure of growth and discovery. So it's not always good to be who people think you are, especially if you subscribe to it as well ... which is easily done, because then you don't have to figure out who you are, you just ask somebody else.

This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. "Oh, it's just a couple little innocent bad days." Well, we had a big rain. I don't know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. 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 nothin'. They're your days. Choke 'em!

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.

She's got the whole dark forest living inside of her.

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.

Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.

You're my North Star when I'm lost and feeling blue.

Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.

I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.

I'll be clickin' by your house about two forty-five, Sidewalk Sundae Strawberry Surprise.

Let me fall out of the window/ With confetti in my hair

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

If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.

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.

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.

I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.

I did my time in the jail of your arms

Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.

I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have. My wife actually thinks I have a syndrome called Reality Distortion Field. It's kind of like drugs, only you can't come back from it. Reality Distortion is almost a permanent condition. Things come in and they go out: Presto, chango! To a certain extent, I did that with myself. As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.

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.

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.

I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong… I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.

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.

Time is just memory Mixed in with Desire.

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.

The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.