They called it the Terminal Bar but they had no idea that like twenty years later the place’d be filling up with terminal cases.
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.
Folks who work here are professors. Don’t replace all the knowers with guessors keep’em open they’re the ears of the town.
He said, I’m better off without her, until I showed him my tattoo.
Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.
The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.
It’s new, it’s improved, it’s old fashioned.
Got 27 children I never see.
I think this whole division between the genres has more to do with marketing than anything else. It’s terrible for the culture of music.
I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I’m a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.
Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like ‘Chicago’ is a very musical sounding name.
I don’t know if any genuine, meaningful change could ever result from a song. It’s kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.
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.
Oh, I got a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille four-door. No one will ride in it with me.
If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man.
I’ve never met anyone who made it with a chick because they owned a Tom Waits album. I’ve got all three, and it’s never helped me.
I really like your playing.
Oh I don’t mind going to weddings, just as long as it’s not my own...
When the weather’s rough and it’s whiskey in the rain it’s best to wrap your savior up in cellophane.
You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It’s like that with music – parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together.