Tom Waits Quotes

You cannot live your life looking at yourself from someone else's point of view.

The world can't tell you who you are. You've just got to figure out who you are and be there, for better or worse.

I've never, ever labeled myself.

A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.

Many times people will say, you know, you're such a great role model. Well, that's great, but at the end of the day, you have to learn to be your own best role model and learn what makes you happy, not necessarily what society thinks you're supposed to be or women that you look up to, what they're doing. I look at that as being a symbol in a blueprint, but never forget that who you are is what's most important.

I don't care what people think of me or for what reason they think of me. I don't feel like I don't know who I am to the degree that I have to change my hair to create a new me.

When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.

The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself you will always be someone else. Become yourself.

First you have to know who you are. That is the most important thing, as if you don't know who you are you will either get swallowed up or you follow some unsuitable trends and just become a nonentity.

Our goal as women should be to discover who we are and not who we think we should be or who the world wants us to be. It's not our responsibility to be arm candy!

I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself.

People have to learn who they are - you can't have somebody else telling you who you are.

It's so much easier to know who you are when there aren't a thousand people telling you who they think you are.

I want to challenge people to find out who they are.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.

Figure out who you are.

I didn't want to make cinema so a person forgets himself and has a lot of fun. 'I forget myself, I am a little poor consumer.' I wanted to make a picture where someone who sees it say, 'This is me! This is me!'

Yeah, it's nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.

If you spend the first 30 years of your life only trying to look good, you're not going to know yourself very well. If you got it, flaunt it.

My whole life has been about figuring out the balance between knowing who I am and being who I am and accepting that people will come to me with all sorts of preconceptions.

I am who I am. I'm unique. I'm my own self.

For a long time, I consciously tried to be a good person for others. Not anymore. Caring about other people keeps me in line, but I've decided to just be myself.

I'm trying to know who I am and be honest about it.

'Shortcomings' was me figuring out who I am.

I see the ups and downs. I see the mistakes I've made. I see a funny person. I see a serious person. I see a diamond. I see the good times. I see the bad times. And I see knowledge of self. I see knowledge of self. I know who I am. When I look in the mirror, I see me.