My wife called me a mule. She once said, "I didn't marry a man; I married a mule!" I kept thinking about it. It was in the back of my head. I think it makes a good title for an album.
Tom WaitsChildren 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 WaitsThe 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 WaitsIt's cold out there, colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar Theatre on a Saturday night.
Tom WaitsMost 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 WaitsI've made a profound transformation. I've fashioned some cyber-underwear. I'm not scared of anything! Actually, I am scared of a few things. Cyber world is a world of adventure, a new galaxy. I'm big on adventure. But I don't assume that just because the word cyber is being used as a prefix, doesn't give it anymore value or credence. Cyber relationships have the illusion of intimacy, sometimes with the absence of intimacy. Is it better to have a conversation in a café or on the telephone?
Tom WaitsThe things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. It's all out there and available for you to enjoy...and be nourished by.
Tom WaitsYour old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On
Tom WaitsI knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
Tom WaitsMostly 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 WaitsIf you are recording, you are recording. I don't believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal.
Tom WaitsI don't think that you should be perfectly candid and frank about the intimate details of your personal life with the public at large. Subsequently, it creates considerable personal problems.
Tom WaitsBill Hicks - blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.
Tom WaitsI like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.
Tom WaitsI 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.
Tom WaitsPhotos are profound because they have such short lives. They are more like fingerprints, dead leaves, rain puddles, or the corpses of flies.
Tom WaitsI 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 WaitsThe 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 WaitsAnton brings the camera. I'll bring a tuba, wear black, not shave, and take us to a burned-down Chinese restaurant. (On being photographed by his longtime photo collaborator Anton Corbijn)
Tom WaitsWhen the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane.
Tom WaitsThe 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 WaitsWhen you're a kid and you're trying to find your own voice, it's rather daunting to hear somebody like Howlin' Wolf, because you know that you'll never achieve that.
Tom WaitsIf 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 WaitsChevrolet 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 WaitsYou hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone.
Tom Waits