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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

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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
Career
Careers
Dead
Beauty
Show
Business
Shows

More quotes by 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.
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The Music was like Electric Sugar
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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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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.
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They called it the Terminal Bar but they had no idea that like twenty years later the place'd be filling up with terminal cases.
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All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes
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Misery is the River of the World
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I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.
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I sold a quart of blood and bought a half a pint of scotch
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Let me fall out of the window/ With confetti in my hair
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The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone
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The piano has been drinking, not me.
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Most changes in music, most exciting things that happen in music, occur through a miscommunication between people I thought you said this. Poetry comes out of that too.
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I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page.
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It's terrible for the culture of music. Like anything that is purely economic, it ignores the most important component.
Tom Waits
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The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.
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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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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
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I walked 500 miles just to see a halo, when I opened my eyes I was blind as can be.
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