quotes by Tom Waits

"There ain't no devil, only God when he's drunk."
— Tom Waits

"My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day."
— Tom Waits

"Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends."
— Tom Waits

"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things."
— Tom Waits

"Well I got a bad liver and broken heart,
yeah,I drunk me a river since you
tore me apart"
— Tom Waits

"Well, it's either kiss me or kill me, that's how I see it."
— Tom Waits

""I've been riding on the crest of a slump lately." "
— Tom Waits

"A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn't."
— Tom Waits

"it ain't no sin, to take off your skin and dance around in your bones"
— Tom Waits

"In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day."
— Tom Waits

""I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink.""
— Tom Waits

"...and the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming..."
— Tom Waits

"Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things."
— Tom Waits

"I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train... "
— Tom Waits

"I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas."
— Tom Waits

"The big print giveth and the small print taketh away. "
— Tom Waits

""The piano has been drinking, not me." "
— Tom Waits

"Q: What’s hard for you?

A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.



"
— Tom Waits

"I ain't got no spare/I ain't got no jack/I don't give a shit/I'm not going back"
— Tom Waits

"When the weather's rough and it's whiskey in the rain it's best to wrap your savior up in cellophane."
— Tom Waits

"And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can’t forget that history puts a saint in every dream."
— Tom Waits

"I've never been a fan of personality-conflict burgers and identity-crisis omelets with patchouli oil. I function very well on a diet that consists of Chicken Catastrophe and Eggs Overwhelming and a tall, cool Janitor-in-a-Drum. I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station."
— Tom Waits

"Your old home town's so far away, but inside your head there's a record that's playing, a song called 'Hold On'"
— Tom Waits

"Well you say that it's gospel,
But I know that it's only church."
— Tom Waits

"I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride."
— Tom Waits

"You know there ain't no devil, that's just God when he's drunk..."
— Tom Waits

"Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at."
— Tom Waits

"slept all night in the cedar grove,
i was born to ramble, born to rove,
some men are searchin' for the holy grail,
but there ain't nothin' sweeter
than ridin' the rails"
— Tom Waits

"Never have your wallet with you onstage. It's bad luck. You shouldn't play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.
Tom Waits (to me, about 1986 or so)"
— Tom Waits

""Most vagabonds i knowed don't ever want to find the culprit that remains the object of their long relentless quest. The obsession's in the chasing and not the apprehending, the pursuit you see and never the arrest" - Tom Waits "Foreign Affairs""
— Tom Waits

"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away."
— Tom Waits (The Early Years: The Lyrics of Tom Waits 1971-1983)

"and when they pulled her from the wreck, you know, she still had on her shades"
— Tom Waits

""I walked 500 miles just to see a halo, when I opened my eyes I was blind as can be.""
— Tom Waits

"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.
We are monkeys with money and guns.
"
— Tom Waits

"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
— Tom Waits

""The Music was like Electric Sugar""
— Tom Waits

"Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well."
— Tom Waits

"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

""Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own...""
— Tom Waits

"The beginning of it starts at the end"
— Tom Waits

"It's cold out there, colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar Theatre on a Saturday night."
— Tom Waits

"I've made a profound transformation. I've fashioned some cyber-underwear. I'm not scared of anything! Actually, I am scared of a few things. Cyber world is a world of adventure, a new galaxy. I'm big on adventure. But I don't assume that just because the word cyber is being used as a prefix, doesn't give it anymore value or credence. Cyber relationships have the illusion of intimacy, sometimes with the absence of intimacy. Is it better to have a conversation in a café or on the telephone?"
— Tom Waits