Quotes from Tom Waits

People make songs so that somebody else will hear them and want to do them. I guess it's an indication that the songs aren't so ultra-personal that they can't possibly be interpreted by anyone else.

Some day I'm gonna be gone and people will be listening to my songs and conjuring me up. In order for that to happen, you gotta put something of yourself in it.

And I remember quiet evenings trembling close to you...

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

Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.

Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own.

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

I didn't really identify with the music of my own generation, but I was very curious about the music of others.

All records are riddles, and whatever you may want people to think it's about, it may just be throwing them off. And you don't want it to get in the way of what someone else's understanding is. It's not really about anything. At the same time, it will find some meaning.

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.

Mostly 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.

It's the same with men as with horses and dogs, nothing wants to die.

Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail. Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets.

I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have.

They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing.

If you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.

Oh, I got a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille four-door. No one will ride in it with me.

My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.

I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.

I used to think that all great recordings happened at about 3 A.M.

How do the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves the porch light on?

But then I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.

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.

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.