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 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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Tom Waits highlights his love for jazz despite not being an accomplished musician, indicating that he values words as his primary means of expression.
In this quote, Tom Waits expresses his deep admiration for jazz music while humbly acknowledging his limitations as a musician. He suggests that while he may not excel at playing musical instruments, he finds strength and creativity in language, implying that vocabulary is his true instrument. This reflects a broader idea about the different ways individuals can express themselves artistically, whether through music or words.
Themes
JazzMusicVocabularyExpressionArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a creative writing workshop to inspire participants about the power of words.
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.
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I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.
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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.
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My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
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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
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