All that you've loved is all you own

If you can make a little painting for the ears with a few words, well, I like words; I like cutting them up and finding different ways of saying the same thing... I get into a spell, and it all comes easy. I don't labor over it. I go inside the song, I think you make yourself an antenna for songs, and songs want to be around you. And then they bring other songs along, and then they're all sitting around, and they're drinkin' your beer, and they're sleeping on the floor. And they are using the phone, they're rude, thankless little f---ers.

I’ve never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a Tom Waits album. I’ve got all three, and it’s never helped me.

There's no prayer like desire.

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.

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

I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.