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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.

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
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Fireman
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More quotes by Tom Waits

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The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
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Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.
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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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Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way.
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I took a hundred dollars from a blindman's hand.
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...and I'm standing on the corner of Fifth and Vermouth.
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If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.
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The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone
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New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.
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Are you still jumping out of windows in expensive clothes?
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Now it's closing time/the music's fading out.
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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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Francis Ford Coppola is completely unconventional. He has a strong sense of loyalty. Great eyes. It's a diabolical undertaking in terms of organization and leadership.
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A mental midget with the IQ of a fence post.
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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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Folks who work here are professors. Don't replace all the knowers with guessors keep'em open they're the ears of the town
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I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
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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.
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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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and when they pulled her from the wreck, you know, she still had on her shades
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