450 Quotes by Tom Waits

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

I dunno, when I started writing really I was like, filling out applications and stuff real early. Last name first, first name last, sex... occasionally, stuff like that. Then I was writing letters, filling out forms, writing on bathroom walls...

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.

When you're writing‚ you're conjuring. It's a ritual‚ and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room.

You choke my days, I'll choke yours.

Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a bubble. Everyone who's connected with it, the studio's gone, the musicians are gone, and the only thing that's left is this recording which was only about a three-minute period maybe 70 years ago.

For a songwriter, you dont really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes.

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.

I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong - I have audio illusions.