Tom Waits Quotations

I have a Chamberlain I bought from some surfers in Westwood many years ago. It's an early analog synthesizer; it operates on tape loops. It has 60 voices - everything from galloping horses to owls to rain to every instrument in the orchestra.

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.

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.

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.

The only thing worse than being in the Hall of Fame is not being in the Hall of Fame.

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.

There's not much difference between what I appear to be on stage and what I am. I think people like that, that I'm not trying to pull a caper.

using parking meters as walking sticks.

Let me fall out of the window/ With confetti in my hair

God's away, God's away, God's away on business. Business!