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 WaitsYou know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It's like that with music - parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together.
Tom WaitsI just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bell-bottoms, or patchouli-oil or bean-sprouts...it rubs me up the wrong way.
Tom WaitsThereโs nothing more embarrassing than a person who tries to guess what the great American public would like, makes a compromise for the first time, and falls flat on his faceโฆ I would rather be a failure on my own terms than a success on someone elseโs. Thatโs a difficult statement to live up to, but then Iโve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.
Tom Waits