Quote

If you're a writer you know that the stories don't come to you, you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.

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
Lobby
Writer
Looking
Stories
Come
Men

More quotes by Tom Waits

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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.
Tom Waits
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For a songwriter, you dont really go to songwriting school you learn by listening to tunes.
Tom Waits
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You're my North Star when I'm lost and feeling blue.
Tom Waits
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I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It's just for you.
Tom Waits
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Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothing.
Tom Waits
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I danced along a colored wind/ Dangled from a rope of sand
Tom Waits
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I may be drunk but at least I'm not insane.
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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That for me is more important than anything when you're in the studio - to have somebody you can trust and who knows you, knows who you are and doesn't let you get away with anything.
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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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
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She pulls a razor from her boot and a thousand victims fall around her feet.
Tom Waits
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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.
Tom Waits
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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
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Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
Tom Waits
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I guess I've always lived upside down when I want things I can't have.
Tom Waits
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Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.
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 hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone.
Tom Waits
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The ship is sinking The ship is sinking There's leak, there's a leak,in the boiler room The poor, the lame, the blind Who ore the ones that we kept in charge Killers, thieves, and lawyers God's Away, God's away God's away on Business
Tom Waits