Quotes from Tom Waits

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

Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead

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

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.

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

If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it's good. I'm not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don't cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don't stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you'll never see it again.

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.

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.

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

I have a Chamberlain I bought from some surfers in Westwood many years ago. It's an early analog synthesizer; it operates on tape loops. It has 60 voices - everything from galloping horses to owls to rain to every instrument in the orchestra.

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

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. You find that out really fast.

I'm trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It's like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.

I'm reliable sources, I'll tell ya anything you want me to know.

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.

Any image I have, it's just what I do, but it comes off as being very pretentious. When you're a bit in the public astigmatism, anything you do seems like you did it so somebody would see you do it, like showing up at the right parties.

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

You must have brought the bad weather with youThe sky's the color of leadAll you've left me is a featherOn an unmade bed

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

There's not much difference between what I appear to be on stage and what I am. I think people like that, that I'm not trying to pull a caper.

I'm just trying to make a buck like everyone else.

Somebody said I sound like an old lady, and I was really insulted by that. I'm trying to sound like Skip James and Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye.

You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way.