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
I'll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests a paradox in human relationships where one can share vulnerabilities while concealing the truth about their history.
Tom Waits highlights the complexity of human interactions, where individuals may open up about their inner thoughts and feelings yet choose to obscure or alter their past experiences. This reflects the duality of honesty and deception in relationships, where the truth can be selectively presented, complicating our understanding of authenticity and trust.
Themes
SecretsTruthPastRelationshipsDeception
In practice
Example use cases
In a personal blog about vulnerability, this quote can emphasize the complexities of sharing one's life.
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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