Tom Waits Quotes

39 Sourced Quotes

Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk.

Tom Waits
And someone will head south 'til this whole thing cools off.

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

Tom Waits
Your veal cutlet gets up off the plate, It walks down to end of the counter and beat the shit out of my cup of coffee. I guess the coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself.

Tom Waits
Well, you know when you're the opening act for large groups? Sometimes you feel like a rectal thermometer, you're going out there taking the temperature of the audience.

Tom Waits
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.

Tom Waits
There are only two things you can throw out the window of a moving car, legally.... Water. And feathers. Everything else you can get in trouble for.

Tom Waits
How do the angels get to sleep / When the Devil leaves his porch light on?

Tom Waits
Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail.

Tom Waits
People don't really trust people to do two things well. If they're going to spend money, they want to get the guy who's the best at what he does.

Tom Waits
And sometime around 2 AM you end up taking advantage of yourself. Ain't no way around that. Making a scene with a magazine.

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

Tom Waits
She's been married so many times she's got rice marks on her face

Tom Waits
The face forgives the mirror, the worm forgives the plough, the question begs the answer, can you forgive me somehow?

Tom Waits
We work independently and we work together. If both of you know the same stuff, one of you is unnecessary.

Tom Waits
If you get far enough away you'll be on your way back home.

Tom Waits
If I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too.

Tom Waits
I'll be clickin' by your house about two forty-five, Sidewalk Sundae Strawberry Surprise.

Tom Waits
Well, they'll bark you down like carneys, sell you Christmas cards in June.

Tom Waits
It's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace, and a wound that will never heal. No prima donna, the perfume is on an old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey. Goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers and goodnight, Matilda, too.

Tom Waits
There's nothing that you can say that will mean the same thing once it's been repeated.

Tom Waits
I admit that I ain't no angel, I admit that I ain't no saint— I'm selfish and I'm cruel and I'm blind. If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. When they leave they're so hard to find...

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
I collaborate with my wife on the songs, and every aspect of it, really— composing, and arranging, and recording, all that business. We have a rhythm and a way of working it. It's kind of like borrowing the same ten bucks from somebody over and over again. But when you live together, it makes it a lot easier, the pay back.

Tom Waits
If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man.

Tom Waits
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate.

Tom Waits
Before there was recording, everything was subject to the folk process. And we were all part of composing in the evolution and the migration of songs. We all reached out, and they all passed through our hands at some point. You dropped a verse or changed the gender or cleaned up a verse for your kids or added something more appropriate for your community.

Tom Waits
I'm so goddamn horny, the crack of dawn better be careful around me!

Tom Waits
What's he building in there? We have a right to know.

Tom Waits
And their mouths are cut like razor blades, and their eyes are like stilettos, and her radiator's steaming and her teeth are in a wreck, she won't let you kiss her, but what in the hell do you expect?

Tom Waits