A Quote by Tom Waits

Any image I have, it's just what I do, but it comes off as being very pretentious. When you're a bit in the public astigmatism, anything you do seems like you did it so somebody would see you do it, like showing up at the right parties.
What you see and what you hear on YouTube and the News and all that, it's not what it looks like, it's not what it seems, it's not what it is. Most of the time when you look at somebody off of an image they've built, it's the exact reversal of whatever that image is.
If somebody asks me about the themes of something I'm working on, I never have any idea what the themes are. . . . Somebody tells me the themes later. I sort of try to avoid developing themes. I want to just keep it a little bit more abstract. But then, what ends up happening is, they say, 'Well, I see a lot here that you did before, and it's connected to this other movie you did,' and . . . that almost seems like something I don't quite choose. It chooses me.
I think I misunderstood the following in the footsteps bit, in a few of my early drinking years. I'd take any form of being compared to Dad as flattery. So if I fell off a stool or smashed up a TV set just because I was drunk, and somebody in the bar went 'Hey, man, that was just like Bonzo!' I would be really happy.
I'm cynical by nature, but I am also very hopeful because I see people from the Left and the Right showing up to these tea parties. You have people, bikers, union members and guys in three-piece suits showing up to these things.
I just don't feel that we've traveled very far in the realm of social equality. There just seems to be a little bit of unrest. And sometimes I think that happens when you really feel like something's about to change. Right before the moment of lift off, sometimes things feel a little bit unhinged, and that's what it feels like to me right now, both as a woman and just as a human on the planet as an American woman in America. I feel like we're on the precipice of change. I feel a little nervous.
I remember I used to go to The Laugh Factory and just goof off onstage, and then I'd see Dane Cook. He did a bit about his Mom making the bed in the summertime when he was a kid. He just said "Vroom!" and threw the sheet up in the air and the sheet would just stay over the bed for like a minute and a half. All he had were his arms out, but I could see the sheet. And he didn't do anything. He just kept it there. And I went, "I have to write more."
I don't like being in public with headphones on. I don't know how people can do it. It seems like you're so cut off from your environment. I feel like I'd get hit by a car.
I just like being a social experiment sometimes. I really should not be allowed in public. But I just go out into the public just to see people's reaction. The thing is, I can do anything I want, virtually, within reason, just to see people's reaction.
Yellow's more like, I'm not trying to be this sexy vixen or anything, obviously. I'm a very friendly person, and I literally do just want to be your friend. I think all of that is wrapped up in yellow. It seems to work. I like being in it.
Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, 'One tear, right now,' that one tear would pop out.
I think you have to embrace being a role model because you are in the public eye, and whether you like it or not, people are going to be affected by you positively or negatively, ... Public-wise, I really wouldnt do anything that would be detrimental to anybody else or to myself. And to a certain extent, I try to watch out and try not to do anything that would be bad for kids to see.
When I'm online and I see a picture I want to draw of anybody or anything, a unique angle of them or just something that looks very drawable, I slide it to my desktop and put it in a folder. It just seems like every picture of Trump is a revelation. Any angle. I didn't know a person could look like that. His facial expressions - he really is a cartoon. He's like an instruction manual of how to caricature someone.
Fashion is a little bit pretentious. Whereas I feel like movies are just fun. That's just my perspective, based off my experiences, obviously everyone has different experiences.
Just classic immigrant story - I mean, child of immigrant story - did not grow up with cable and so felt constantly like I was being spoken to in a foreign language when I would go to school. And people would be like, did you watch this? Did you watch that? I'd be like, no, but I did watch 'SNL.'
Essentially, I'm a very real person; good and bad. And the public image is one of being very good, I suppose. But one of the reasons I'm attracted to people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Christ, to pacifism, is because naturally, I'm the guy that would not turn the other cheek - but, when people see you're attracted to that, they think you are that.
I just write about how I'm feeling at the time. If I feel like being cheeky and a bit straight up and a bit aggressive, you'll hear that in my music. If I feel like being very vulnerable and opening up about something personal, you'll hear that, too.
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