Tom Waits Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

  Tom Waits

  Song, Writing, Bird

  FaceBook post by Tom Waits from Nov 11, 2009

• The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Suffering, Quality

  "Strange Innocence". Interview with J. T. LeRoy, July 2001.

• 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.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Brave, Needs

• 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.

  Tom Waits

  Sex, Wall, Real

  "Watch Out For 16 Year Old Girls Wearing Bell Bottoms Who Are Running Away From Home And Have A Lot Of Blue Oyster Cult Records Under Their Arm". "ZigZag" Magazine Interview with Peter O'Brien, July 1976.

• You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Trying, Way

  Source: blankonblank.org

• You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Self, Order

  "Tom Waits: 'I'm a night-owl reporter' - a classic interview from the vaults". Interview with Richard Cromelin, www.theguardian.com. August 7, 2012.

• I'm trying to learn how to write faster.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Trying, Faster

  Source: stephenkpeeples.com

• I like vocal word stuff. But I don't always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It's more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It's closest to the choreography of a bee. You're freer.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Air, Drawing

  Interview with Amanda Petrusich, pitchfork.com. November 27, 2006.

• Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were writing songs because you can do it while getting your hair cut.

  Tom Waits

  Song, Writing, Cutting

  Interview with Mark Richardson, pitchfork.com. October 18, 2011.

• It's rather mystifying when you think about writing songs - where they come from, and how they're born.

  Tom Waits

  Song, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.wbur.org

• 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

  Song, Morning, Writing

  Interview with The Onion A.V. Club, www.avclub.com. May 29, 2002.

• I like writing melody without an instrument. It's just so - it's more like the choreography of a bee; you just go.

  Tom Waits

  Writing, Bees, Instruments

  "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. October 31, 2011.

• There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do anything during the time when I wrote no songs. I was creative, but in another way. I had ideas for songs and collected the ideas.

  Tom Waits

  Song, Writing, Ideas

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