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
Q: What’s hard for you? A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the balance between imagination and reality in navigating life's challenges.
In this quote, Tom Waits reflects on the duality of imagination and reality, suggesting that both are essential for a fulfilling life. He acknowledges the struggles of everyday tasks and the importance of using creativity to cope with them, illustrating how imagination can provide comfort and context to the mundane aspects of life.
Themes
ImaginationRealityChallengesBalanceLife
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used as a motivational message in a creative workshop.
More from Tom Waits
All quotes →If 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 I’d rather die before I wake like Marilyn Monroe and throw my dreams out in the street and the rain make ‘em grow
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