Tom Waits Quotes

Don't play dead with a vulture. That's exactly what they want.

The others wolves would devour me if they could know that my roar is, in reality, a crying.

One way to compensate for a tiny brain is to pretend to be dead.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

The art of the bird is to conceal its nest both as to position and as to material, but now and then it is betrayed into weaving into its structure showy and bizarre bits of this or that, which give its secret away and which seem to violate all the traditions of its kind.

Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn't roar?

Honey, ... When a wolf watches a lamb, he's not thinking about the lamb's mommy.

I spend a lot of time just listening to the ospreys. I watch them go through their life cycle. They spend the winter in South America. The mother and father osprey stay together. It's a monogamous relationship. And every summer they raise a new brood of children. They came back to the nest in the middle of April. They take separate vacations in the winter - the mother and father.

If you ask the lion to protect from from wolves, you have only chosen to end in one belly instead of another.

A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.

He thought about how it might be to be, say, a fox confronted with an angry sheep. A sheep moreover, that could afford to employ wolves.

Women have an incredible ability to pick up on emotional signals. For example, there are some wolves that are so clever they have learned to dress up like sheep. Man says, "Looks like a sheep. Talks like a sheep." Woman says, "Ain't no sheep!"

The most exciting thing in England is a pigeon or foxes, which isn't very interesting to watch because everyone knows what they do. But I've taken pictures of them. Just for practice.

Weakness ineffectually seeks to disguise itself,--like a drunken man trying to show how sober he is.

Many people are blind to trust, not so much to its benefits as to its nature and the practices that make it possible.

No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.

thats why you cant be worried about the world. theyll just do you in anyway. you can't depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disapear and leave you there alone.

Tis well for old age that it is always accompanied with want of perception, ignorance, and a facility of being deceived. For should we see how we are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us?

Wait. You think I'm going to die? That's why you slept with me?

When the Foxe preacheth, beware geese.

The Internet is great for things, like finding the answers to things you pretended to know or stalking people.

The wild bird that flies so lone and far has somewhere its nest and brood. A little fluttering heart of love impels its wings, and points its course. There is nothing so solitary as a solitary man.

Everyone feels awkward, everyone feels uncomfortable, everyone gets older, everyone gets lonely, everyone gets sick, everyone eventually dies. You’re at the Aspen Ideas Fest, and you have these really smart, really accomplished people who pretend like they’ve somehow figured out a way to bypass the human condition. We live in this culture where there are so many things that want us to pretend that we’re not truly human.

The wolf attacks with his fang, the bull with his horn.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.