Quote

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.

Tom Waits

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Tom Waits
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: December 7
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Jazz Guitarist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Writer
Pomona
California
Thomas Alan Waits
Year
Kind
Tion
Good
Fireman
Would
Army
Like
Lived
Wasn
Fire
Imagine

More quotes by Tom Waits

Image
I like Thelonious Monk, he's so gnarled, he's like a piece of machinery that's pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.
Tom Waits
Image
I used to imagine that making it in music - really making it in music - is if you're an old man going by a schoolyard and you hear children singing your songs, playing jump-rope, or on the swings. That's the ultimate. You're in the culture.
Tom Waits
Image
Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.
Tom Waits
Image
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.
Tom Waits
Image
Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.
Tom Waits
Image
It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.
Tom Waits
Image
using parking meters as walking sticks.
Tom Waits
Image
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
Image
There's a lot of intelligence in the hands.When you pick up a shovel, the hands know what to do. The same thing's true of sitting at the piano.
Tom Waits
Image
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
Image
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.
Tom Waits
Image
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.
Tom Waits
Image
Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.
Tom Waits
Image
I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong… I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.
Tom Waits
Image
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
Image
The things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. It's all out there and available for you to enjoy...and be nourished by.
Tom Waits
Image
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
Image
You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.
Tom Waits
Image
I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.
Tom Waits
Image
Planes and Trains and Boats and Busses Characteristically Evolve a common attitude of blue Unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport And the cargo that they're carrying is you.
Tom Waits