A Quote by Tom Waits

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

Tom Waits

Quote Topics

Birds Capturing End Feathers Killing Like Nothing Sometimes Songs Them Up Without Writing Writing Songs

Quote Author

Tom Waits
American - Musician
Born: December 7, 1949

There wasn't a cloud in the sky, no wind, and everything was quiet around us - all we could hear were birds chirping in the woods. The war seemed like something in a faraway land that had nothing to do with us. We sang songs as we hiked up the hill, sometimes imitating the birds we heard. Except for the fact that the war was still going on, it was a perfect morning.

Haruki Murakami

When people start writing songs for award shows, there's a very limited palette you can use. You end up not sounding like you. You end up sounding like somebody else. You end up getting what the record company thinks they can market.

Mike Dirnt

Without feathers it isn't easy to fly: my wings have got no feathers. [Lat., Sine pennis volare hau facilest: meae alae pennas non habent.] [Alt., Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers.]

Plautus

I pray to the birds. I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day—the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen.

Terry Tempest Williams

Fifteen birds in five firtrees, their feathers were fanned in a fiery breeze! But, funny little birds, they had no wings! O what shall we do with the funny little things? Roast 'em alive, or stew them in a pot; fry them, boil them and eat them hot?

J. R. R. Tolkien

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

Jason Isbell

I've been told that some members of Congress disagree with my tax cut proposal. Well, you know it's been said that taxation is the art of plucking feathers without killing the bird. It's time they realized the bird just doesn't have any feathers left.

Ronald Reagan

Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.

Stephen King

In painting feathers, you want to create the look of feathers, but if you try to paint all the feathers, you have nothing but disaster.

John O'Neill

I can never tell what's going to end up being on an album until it's all finished. I'm reading the news everyday, and sometimes I just have to be away from it. And that ends up writing the songs for me a little bit.

Jack Johnson

Feathers filled the small room. Our laughter kept the feathers in the air. I thought about birds. Could they fly is there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing?

Jonathan Safran Foer

Killing terrorists is cheaper than capturing them.

Harold Ford, Jr.

Songs are great. I love songs. I sing them in the shower sometimes. They can be poignant or cheery or angry, and they can have catchy and satisfying melodies. There's nothing wrong with songs.

Russell Smith

We saw the strong trees struggle and their plumes do down, The poplar bend and whip back till it split to fall, The elm tear up at the root and topple like a crown, The pine crack at the base - we had to watch them all. The ash, the lovely cedar. We had to watch them fall. They went so softly under the loud flails of air, Before that fury they went down like feathers, With all the hundred springs that flowered in their hair, and all the years, endured in all the weathers - To fall as if they were nothing, as if they were feathers.

May Sarton

I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice.