Quote

I was born in the back seat of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged needing a shave and shouted 'Time Square, and step on it!'

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
Zone
Needing
Time
Step
Hospital
Steps
Square
Loading
Born
Squares
Cab
Running
Seat
Shave
Hospitals
Shouted
Stills
Seats
Meter
Still
Yellow
Emerged
Back

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Well, they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you Christmas cards in June.
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You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
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Popular music is like a big party, and it’s a thrill sneaking in rather than being invited. Every once in a while, a guy with his shirt on inside out, wearing lipstick and a pillbox hat gets a chance to speak.
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I'm always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you're drowning, and it's there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.
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I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain.
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I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have.
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God's away, God's away, God's away on business. Business!
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Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own.
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Jesus Christ, this godamn rain, will someone put me on a train.
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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.
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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.
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I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.
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A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't.
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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.
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