Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter known for his rough and deep voice, offbeat lyrics, and unconventional musical stylings. His work has influenced countless performers across genres such as blues, jazz, country, and even rock ‘n’ roll.
Whether you consider yourself a fan or simply appreciate his music – if you’ve ever heard a Tom Waits song then you can’t deny the power of his words. And throughout the years he has gathered some truly inspiring quotes that will leave an impression on all who read them. Here we have collected 45 of our favorite Tom Waits quotes: crafted with wisdom and insight to touch your soul and spark your imagination!
I hope you enjoy these quotes by Tom Waits…
1) “If people are a little nervous about approaching you at the market, it’s good. I’m not Chuckles The Clown. Or Bozo. I don’t cut the ribbon at the opening of markets. I don’t stand next to the mayor. Hit your baseball into my yard, and you’ll never see it again.” – Tom Waits
2) “All that you’ve loved is all you own” – Tom Waits
3) “There’s always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.” – Tom Waits
4) “and the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming…” – Tom Waits
5) “If you are making a record, you are the one saying ‘action’, and you are the one saying ‘cut,’ and you have to be sure that the most interesting thing is not going on outside the frame.” – Tom Waits
6) “The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.” – Tom Waits
7) “You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.” – Tom Waits
8) “Most people don’t care if you’re telling them the truth or if you’re telling them a lie, as long as they’re entertained by it. You find that out really fast.” – Tom Waits
9) “Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.” – Tom Waits
Famous Tom Waits Sayings
10) “I don’t have a drinking problem ‘Cept when I can’t get a drink.” – Tom Waits
11) “The earth is not my home, I’m just passing by” – Tom Waits
12) “Well, it’s either kiss me or kill me, that’s how I see it.” – Tom Waits
13) “A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.” – Tom Waits
14) “If you get far enough away you’ll be on your way back home.” – Tom Waits
15) “I don’t go to church on Sunday, don’t get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way” – Tom Waits
16) “I hate Disneyland. It primes our kids for Las Vegas.” – Tom Waits
17) “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.” – Tom Waits
18) “I guess I’ve always lived upside down when I want things I can’t have.” – Tom Waits
19) “If you are recording, you are recording. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a demo or a temporary vocal.” – Tom Waits
Funny quotes to make you smile…
20) “Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.” – Tom Waits
21) “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” – Tom Waits
22) “I’ve lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.” – Tom Waits
23) “Most songs that aren’t jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.” – Tom Waits
24) “Music has generally involved a lot of awkward contraptions, a certain amount of heavy lifting.” – Tom Waits
25) “T’ain’t no sin to take off your skin, and dance around in your bones.” – Tom Waits
26) “Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.” – Tom Waits
27) “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
28) “People say all kinds of things about the ingredients of songs. But you know they are a kind of magic, in the sense that they may easily include a stain on your bedroom wall… and a variety of mis-recollections. And then you name it after a girl’s name that you just made up.” – Tom Waits
29) “The piano has been drinking, not me.” – Tom Waits
Good days…
30) “Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me – choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothing.” – Tom Waits
31) “I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.” – Tom Waits
32) “I’m so horny the crack of dawn better watch out.” – Tom Waits
33) “Some day I’m gonna be gone and people will be listening to my songs and conjuring me up. In order for that to happen, you gotta put something of yourself in it.” – Tom Waits
34) “I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.” – Tom Waits
35) “The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.” – Tom Waits
36) “And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can’t forget that history puts a saint in every dream.” – Tom Waits
37) “This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. “Oh, it’s just a couple little innocent bad days.” Well, we had a big rain. I don’t know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. Don’t plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke ’em down to nothin’. They’re your days. Choke ’em!” – Tom Waits
38) “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
39) “I’m usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page. Some people write for the page, and that’s a whole other thing. I’m going for what it sounds like right away, so it may not even look good on the page.” – Tom Waits
Tom Waits Quotes on Life
40) “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” – Tom Waits
41) “We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.” – Tom Waits
42) “Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart.” – Tom Waits
43) “When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.” – Tom Waits
44) “Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.” – Tom Waits
45) “You hope people are going to be listening to you after you’re gone. And they like you better after you’re gone.” – Tom Waits
Please share these quotes by Tom Waits with your friends and family.
