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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: 75
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Stories
Come
Men
Lobby
Writer
Looking

More quotes by Tom Waits

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Misery is the River of the World
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slept all night in the cedar grove, i was born to ramble, born to rove, some men are searchin' for the holy grail, but there ain't nothin' sweeter than ridin' the rails
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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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Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.
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Sometimes when you're making songs you just make sounds, and the sounds slowly mutate and evolve into actual words that have meaning.
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I was a fireman. I lived in the fire sta­tion for about a year. The pay wasn't so good. It was kind of like being in the army, or what I imagine that would be like.
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There's truths there that spiral out of what appears to be just a word game. That's what I find mystifying about the meanings of things: they kind of unscrew themselves from the practical words.
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You cannot really be too concerned with what people think of you. You're on your own adventure of growth and discovery. So it's not always good to be who people think you are, especially if you subscribe to it as well ... which is easily done, because then you don't have to figure out who you are, you just ask somebody else.
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I took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand.
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Any image I have, it's just what I do, but it comes off as being very pretentious. When you're a bit in the public astigmatism, anything you do seems like you did it so somebody would see you do it, like showing up at the right parties.
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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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He said, I'm better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.
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I did my time in the jail of your arms
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George Bush is a fan of mine, he came to see me in the Seventies. His coke dealer brought him.
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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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.
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My first big gig was an opening show for Frank Zappa, and I think that was difficult.
Tom Waits
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You know, we just buy music now. We don't make it any more. And that goes for just about everything. I think it's so important that people develop and subscribe to and have confidence in their own ability to make music, however rough it is.
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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
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Now it's closing time/the music's fading out.
Tom Waits