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 WaitsRead
I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the deep admiration and influence of Ray Charles on Tom Waits during his formative years.
Tom Waits uses this quote to convey the profound impact Ray Charles had on him as a musician and artist. By stating that he 'knelt at the altar' of Charles, Waits emphasizes a sense of reverence and dedication to the music that shaped his own artistic journey, illustrating how influential figures can inspire and guide others in their creative endeavors.
Themes
Ray CharlesMusicInfluenceArtInspiration
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about finding your artistic passion, this quote highlights the importance of inspiration.
More from Tom Waits
All quotes βIf you're in the middle of the ocean with no flippers and no life preserver and you hear a helicopter, this is music. You have to adjust to your needs at the moment.
Tom WaitsRead
Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it, you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me - choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothing.
Tom WaitsRead
My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
Tom WaitsRead
Now its raining its pouring the old man is snoring now I lay me down to sleep I hear the sirens in the street all my dreams are made of chrome I have no way to get back home Iβd rather die before I wake like Marilyn Monroe and throw my dreams out in the street and the rain make βem grow
Tom WaitsRead
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork_x000D_ But it always comes roaring back again.
Tom WaitsRead
Similar quotes
To sing is to love and affirm, _x000D_ to fly and to soar, _x000D_ to coast into the hearts of the people _x000D_ who listen _x000D_ to tell them that life is to live, _x000D_ that love is there, _x000D_ that nothing is a promise, _x000D_ but that beauty exists, _x000D_ and must be hunted for and found.
Joan BaezRead
So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It's over; it's on the record.
Miles DavisRead
To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.
Thomas MannRead
You think I'm going to ask these sweet 14 year olds to ask their parents to buy a $100 ticket then run around in latex and lip sync? No way.
Lady GagaRead
I have had the good fortune of being able to sing with many of the finest voices in the world, and for someone who loves voices as I do, this is an enormous privilege.
Andrea BocelliRead
No - Kajol can never go anywhere. Kajol is absolutely hearts and minds and memories and silloys for ever and ever. I think if I was to, I wouldn't be exaggerating I if say in our times of film-making she's a beautiful living legend.
Shahrukh KhanRead