Tom Waits Quotes

Whenever I'm having a bad day and have an attitude, I stay home. I keep it at home.

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.

There's always going to be people saying negative and positive things. If you let all that into you, and you're always contemplating that and thinking about that, I'm sure that can get to you. I try not to do that.

I want to keep my sanity.

I tune it all out because if I let other people's stress get to me, then I stress myself out more than I need to.

I think having pointers and having guidance from mentors is very important, but it never actually embodies what you go through. And if something doesn't feel good, why do you repeat it? If you feel good bemoaning an audition for a week, go for it. But if you feel better bemoaning an audition that didn't go very well for 30 minutes because you believe in the craft and the process, then I suggest you do that. And that's what I suggest to myself. The alternative is way too painful and destructive.

Although anxiety is part of life, never let it control you.

Don't take your bad shots home with you.

Why do people spend their time being sad when they could be happy?

I've learned that you simply can't control those bad vibes.

Unhappiness is something we are never taught about; we are taught to expect happiness, but never a Plan B to use to use when the happiness doesn't arrive.

I used to be so intensely preoccupied by unhappiness... now there are times where you might get down, but you can move on much faster now.

I just don't deal with the negativity. I can't get involved in that side of it. I don't understand it, and you can't let it take away from your life and what you are trying to do.

I don't waste time being depressed.

I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.

I'm a very emotional person. If I've got something on my mind, that would stop me from giving my best.

I don't have time to be depressed.

I try to keep away exterior events that are going to make me do something negative internally to myself.

I think there's a danger, for me at least, in retreating and going inward and depression. I have to stay diligent against that tendency.

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

I don't feel my best right now, but at the same time, I'm not trying to find any excuses or anything.

People can be cruel, but that doesn't mean you have to take it home, wrap yourself up in it and wear it.

When it's a really dark emotional scene, you have to make the effort to shake it off, at the end of the day, before you go home to your kids and try to be a normal human being. You definitely want to make that effort to shake it off.

I learned certain exercises to help me cope, to get myself in tip-top mental shape to deal with auditions and rejection.

I work too hard to let something affect me that's already happened.