Tom Waits

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

"Well, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

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

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

"I know a place where a royal flush can never beat a pair, and even Thomas Jefferson is On The Nickel over there."

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

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

"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."

"I don't have a drinking problem ‘cept when I can't get a drink."

"And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can forget, that history puts a saint in every dream."

"The piano has been drinking, not me."

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

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

"Come down off the cross, we can use the wood."

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

"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?"

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

"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away."

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

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

"Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets."

"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."

"Our Father, who art in Cribari, hallowed be thy glass. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in the lounges. Give us this day our daily splash, and forgive us our hangovers as we forgive those who continue to hangover against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...and somebody give us all a ride home."

"Disneyland is Vegas for children. When I went with the kids, I just about had a stroke. It's the opposite of what they say it is. It's not a place to nurture the imagination. It's just a big clearance sale for useless items. I'm not going back, and the kids won't be allowed to return until they're eighteen, out of the house. And even then, I would block their decision."

"(When asked for advice for younger musicians) "Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell 'em to do that, they'll find a little pot of gold.""

"The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone"

"She's been married so many times she's got rice marks all over her face"

"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."

"Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air."

"They say that I have no hits, and I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing."

"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."

"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness....We are monkeys with money and guns."

""I always wondered how Tom Waits would sing 'Greensleeves'...." --Loreena McKennitt, "The Visit"."