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The fact is most of the things that people know about me are made up. My own life is backstage. So what you know about me is only what I allowed you to know about me.

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
Allowed
Fact
Facts
Made
Things
Life
People
Backstage

More quotes by Tom Waits

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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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but it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.
Tom Waits
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I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.
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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and when they pulled her from the wreck, you know, she still had on her shades
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 took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand.
Tom Waits
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I may be drunk but at least I'm not insane.
Tom Waits
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It wasn't good for my nerves, that kind of work - a fireman. I've got high blood pressure. I get upset easily. I don't think that was a proper career alternative for me.
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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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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Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?
Tom Waits
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I hope I'm becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain.
Tom Waits
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All medical procedures require two hands, so in a sense it's like when you play an instrument. That's what they call things that they use in their work: They call them instruments. A lot of people start out majoring in medicine and drop it and change their major to music.
Tom Waits
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I know a girl, she been married so many times, she got rice marks all over her face
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 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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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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I'll take a rusty nail and scratch your initials on my arm.
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