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It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.

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
Thinking
Mystifying
Songs
Rather
Born
Song
Come
Writing
Think

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You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.
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When it's raining you can't find enough things to catch it in. When it's not you can stand out in the middle of the street in a dress and a funny hat and nothing's gonna make it rain. I go through periods - or spells - when I'm more receptive.
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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.
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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.
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Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
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All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
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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.
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but it's so hard to dance that way when it's cold and there's no music.
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I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
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When you say you're doing an opera, it's like when you're a seven-year-old and say, 'I'm off to Washington, Dad.' You kind of go, 'Sure. Sure you are, son.'
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We are all just monkeys with money and guns.
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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.
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If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it's good. I'm not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don't cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don't stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you'll never see it again.
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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.
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There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.
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It's hard to win when you always lose.
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The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
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I do like books on anatomy. I have to say I'm an amateur physician, I guess.
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My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
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I'm the type of guy who'd sell you a rat's asshole for a wedding ring.
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