Quote

I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.

Tom Waits

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tom Waits
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Musician
Pedestrian
Great
Pedestrians
Always
Vocabulary
Think
Instrument
Thinking
Appreciation
Like
Main
Instruments
Jazz

More quotes by Tom Waits

Image
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
Image
If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.
Tom Waits
Image
Chevrolet 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 Waits
Image
It's new, it's improved, it's old fashioned.
Tom Waits
Image
I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way
Tom Waits
Image
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
Tom Waits
Image
Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces / there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier
Tom Waits
Image
There's a place down the street Seven Xs. What does that mean? Maybe it's... girls without skin.
Tom Waits
Image
Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.
Tom Waits
Image
I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.
Tom Waits
Image
Children 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 Waits
Image
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.
Tom Waits
Image
I just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bell-bottoms, or patchouli-oil or bean-sprouts...it rubs me up the wrong way.
Tom Waits
Image
I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.
Tom Waits
Image
I was always laughing in church.
Tom Waits
Image
In terms of black music - the only music that we can call our own, that was really born here - I don't think a lot has been done to chronicle the relations between American history and where black music fits in.
Tom Waits
Image
I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have.
Tom Waits
Image
Francis Ford Coppola is completely unconventional. He has a strong sense of loyalty. Great eyes. It's a diabolical undertaking in terms of organization and leadership.
Tom Waits
Image
My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.
Tom Waits
Image
Most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit that remains the object of their long relentless quest. The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending, the pursuit you see and never the arrest - Tom Waits Foreign Affairs
Tom Waits