Tom Waits - Quotes

Maintained by Yair Shmuely

• "...Never could stand that dog..."
• "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
• "I don't have a drinking problem 'Cept when I can't get a drink."
• "I was born in the back seat of a Yellow Cab in a hospital loading zone and with the meter still running. I emerged needing a shave and shouted 'Time Square, and step on it!'"
• "It's colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar theater on a Saturday night."
• "Colder than a jewish american princess on her honeymoon"
• "Colder than a well digger's ass"
• "I knew him when he was nothing and he hasn't changed a bit"
• "...it seems a stray bullet actually pierced the testicle of a Union soldier and lodged itself in the ovaries of a woman standing approximately 100 ft. away. She's alright, the baby's doing fine...ofcourse the soldier's a little pissed off..."
• "...You end up taking advantage of yourself. There ain't no way around that."
• "I'm so goddamn horny the crack of dawn better watch itself around me."
• "Coleen's belly was shakin' like jelly And I'm gettin' harder than Chinese algebra."
• "Oh I don't mind going to weddings, just as long as it's not my own..."
• "And i'm glad that you're gone, but i wish to the lord that you'd come home"
• "It walks down to end of the counter (His Veal Cutlet) and beat the shit out of my cup of coffee. I guess the coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself."
• "Veal cutlet came down...started beatin' the shit outa my cuppa coffee...coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself...."
• "I'm not weird about it or anything (Masturbating in this instance). I don't tie myself up first or anything."
• "All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes"
• "Let me fall out of the window with confetti in my hair" Deal out jacks are better on a blanket by the stairs, I'd tell you all my secrets but I'll lie about my past, So send me off to bed forevermore."
• "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away"
• "It was a hubba, hubba, ding dang, baby you are just everythang. A week later it's a hubba, hubba, ding dong, baby sure didn't last too long."
• "Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead"
• "There's a world going on underground"
• "There ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk"
• "I want to thank you all for being here tonight; it'd be mighty strange here tonight if nobody showed up."
• "And I hope that I don't fall in love with you"
• "Wake me up in my dreams."
• "It takes much more than just wild courage Or you'll hit just the tattered clouds you must have just the right bullets And the first one's always free"
• "Theres a golden moon that shines up through the mist And I know that your name can be on that list Theres no eye for an eye theres no tooth for a tooth I saw Judas Iscariot carrying John Wilkes Booth He was down there by the train."
• "The sky turned black and bruised and we had months of heavy rain."
• "If you've lost all hope/If you've lost all your faith I know you can be cared for/I know you can be safe And all of the shamefuls/And all of the whores And even the soldier who pierced the side of the Lord Is down there by the train."
• "I always wondered how Tom Waits would sing Greensleeves...." --Loreena McKennitt, _The Visit_ (liner notes for Greensleeves)
• "Pour me a cab, I just can't drink no more."
• "Broken umbrellas like dead birds; steam comes out of the grill like the whole God-damn town is ready to blow."
• "...If you want a taste of madness, you'll have to wait in line. You'll probably see someone you know on Heartattack and Vine."
• "And the moon's teeth-marks are on the sky, Like a tarp thrown all over this."
• "The cat'll sleep in the mailbox and we'll never go to town, till we bury every dream in the cold cold ground."
• "Crawlin' down Cahuenga on a broken set of legs..."
• "And it is such a sad old feeling, All the fields are soft and green. And it's memories that I'm stealing, But you're innocent when you dream."
• "And the ambulance drivers don't give a shit, they just want to get off work."
• "..the quality goes in before the name goes on.."
• "The piano is fire wood, Times Square is a dream"
• "Won't you tell me, brave captain why are the wicked, so strong, how can the angels get to sleep when the devil leaves his porch light on."
• "I know a girl, she been married so many times, she got rice marks all over her face"
• "Oh, you call yourself up too, eh? A heh heh heh"
• "Why don't you have another swig and pass that car if you're so brave i wanna get there before the sun comes up in burma shave"
• "Well, I don't mind working cause I used to be jerking off most of the time, in bars"
• "I lost my st. christopher now that i've kissed her"
• "Planes and trains and boats and busses characteristically evoke a common attitude of blue unless you have a suitcase and a ticket and a passport and the cargo that they're carrying is you"
• "The light man's blind in one eye and he can't see out of the other"
• "I'm reliable sources, I'll tell ya anything you want me to know."
• "My friends think I'm ugly, I gotta masculine face."
• "Oh yeah, I remember my first beer." (to a waitress dropping a tray of drinks)
• "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
• "He's a lawyer, he ain't the one for ya."
• "And when they pulled her from the wreck, you know she still had on her shades."
• "It's harder to get rid off than tatoos"
• "I don't need no make-up, i got real scars, i got hair on my chest, i look good without a shirt"
• "There's a place down the street; Seven Xs. What does that mean? Maybe it's... girls without skin."
• "'Cause there's nothin strange About an axe with bloodstains in the barn. There's always some killin' You got to do around the farm."
• "Don't plant your days they turn into weeds"
• "Theres nothing woung with her that a hundred Dollers can't Fix"
• "... while making feet for children's shoes ..."
• "They take apart their nightmares and they leave 'em by the door."
• "They all come from nice families, but somewhere along the line they picked up ways that just aren't RIGHT."
• "I ain't king of anything"
• "and the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget that history puts a saint in every dream"
• "You can tell me that it's gospel but I know that it's only church"
• "Matilda asks the sailors `are those dreams or are those prayers?'"
• "Small-time Napoleon's shattered his knees, but he stays in the saddle for a rose and all his desciples, they shave in the gutter and they gather what's left of his clothes"
• "I've got a bottle for a trumpet, a hatbox for a drum..."
• "Driving dangerous women over dirty sheets"
• "The Moon ain't romantic. It's intimaditing as Hell"
• "I did my time in the jail of your arms"
• "She used to have a sugar daddy and a candy-apple caddy. A bank account and everything,accustomed to the finer things."
• "And I floated down stream on an old dead tree"
• "Cross my wooden leg, swear on my glass eye"
• "Drivin' dangerous curves across the dirty sheets"
• "She was sharp as a razor and soft as a prayer"
• "The boys just dive right off the cars, and splash into the street"
• "And the earth died screaming As I lay dreaming"
• "It's new, it's improved, it's old fashioned"
• "Yeah, and I was using parking meters as walking sticks!"
• "The moon was sharp enough to draw blood from a stone"
• "One look in his eyes... and everyone denies... ever having met him."
• "Even jesus wanted just a little more time, when he was walkin' spanish down the hall"
• "The rooms, they smell like diesel, and you take on the dreams of the ones that have slept there"
• "The moon is sharp enough to draw blood from a stone"
• "I'll take a rusty nail, scratch your initials in my arm..."
• "This ain't a purchase, it's a rental and it's purgatory... now what's your story, well I don't even care... I've got my own double-cross to bear"
• "I thought I heard a saxophone, I'm drunk on the moon"
• "Romeo is bleeding, but not so as you'd notice"
• "Broadway's like a serpent spewing shiny top-down cars"
• "I climb through the window and down to the street.. I'm shining like a new dime. The downtown trains are full... full of all those Brooklyn girls. They try so hard to break out of their little world... You wave your hand and they scatter like crows..."
• "We're going out of business! We'll give you the business! Get on the business end of our Going out of business sale..."
• "Makin' the scene wirth a magazine - there ain't no way around that"
• "Such a crumbling beauty. Ah, there's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars wouldn't fix."
• "I stay in a place called 'Rooms'... There's a whole chain of them."
• "I've lost my equilibrium, my car keys and my pride."
• "It's hard to believe that the same moon shining down on this chinatown fair could shine down on illinois and find you there... I love you baby"
• "Tom do this, Tom do that, Tom...don't do that"
• "Uncle Verlin, Uncle Verlin, independent as a hog on ice. He's a big shot down there at the slaughterhouse, plays accordian for Mr. Weiss."
• "I'm gonna make like a bakery delivery truck and haul buns."
• "I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer, Johnny hey. I'll be eligible for parole come Valentine's Day."
• "I'll ride upon a field mouse, I was dancin' in the slaughterhouse."
• "I'd like to go drowning, but the ocean doesn't want me today."
• "It ain't no sin to take off your skin, and dance around in your bones."
• "The monkey rode a blade on an overhead fan."
• "Will you sell me one of those if I shave my head."
• "...and I'm standing on the corner of Fifth and Vermouth."
• "...using parking meters as walking sticks."
• "Licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue scrawled across the shoulders of a dying town The one eyed jacks across the railroad tracks and the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through..."
• "Well I fell in love with a Gun Street Girl!"
• "Blew a hole in the hood of a yellow corvette"
• "...Well I hear that it pays well How do your pistol and your Bible and your sleeping pills go?"
• "Eddie Grace's Buick's got four bullet holes in the side."
• "Well pale face said to the eyeball kid She just goes clank and boom and steam"