Quote

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

Tom Waits

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Tom Waits
Age: 74
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Clue
Shut
Folks
Aren
Ones
Talking
Truth

More quotes by Tom Waits

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I think some bands thrive on the idea of changing instruments. When they're off their real instrument, the ability to go very far from the original idea is reduced.
Tom Waits
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When it's raining you can't find enough things to catch it in. When it's not you can stand out in the middle of the street in a dress and a funny hat and nothing's gonna make it rain. I go through periods - or spells - when I'm more receptive.
Tom Waits
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Now it's closing time/the music's fading out.
Tom Waits
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...and I'm standing on the corner of Fifth and Vermouth.
Tom Waits
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Most changes in music, most exciting things that happen in music, occur through a miscommunication between people I thought you said this. Poetry comes out of that too.
Tom Waits
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Unfortunately, I made the mistake at one point of putting my address on the back of one of my albums, just to find out what would happen. I received a lot of disturbing mail and calls. Actually, I was living in a hotel, so it was easy enough to find the number. I got a kick out of it for a while. Then I realized what I'd done.
Tom Waits
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I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
Tom Waits
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There's a beauty of show business. It's the only business you can have a career in when you're dead.
Tom Waits
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I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
Tom Waits
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You're innocent when you dream.
Tom Waits
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Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
Tom Waits
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I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.
Tom Waits
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Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
Tom Waits
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Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.
Tom Waits
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I'm the type of guy who'd sell you a rat's asshole for a wedding ring.
Tom Waits
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You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like it's hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it wants more silver discs.
Tom Waits
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Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?
Tom Waits
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Leona Helmsley's dog made $12 million last year... and Dean McLaine, a farmer in Ohio, made $30,000. It's just a gigantic version of the madness that grows in every one of our brains.
Tom Waits
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There's nothing that makes me laugh more than being in the situation where you're not supposed to laugh. Funerals. People crying. Breaking down. Telling you their life. I'm the worst. I'm the worst at that.
Tom Waits
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I don't know if any genuine meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.
Tom Waits