"I wanted to be an old man when I was a little kid. Wore my granddaddy’s hat, used his cane, and lowered my voice. I was dying to be old. I paid a lot of attention to old people. The music I listened to as a teenager was old-people music. Yeah, I heard The Beatles, but I didn’t really pay attention. I was suspicious of anyone new and young. I don’t know, probably a respect thing? My father left when I was about eleven—I think I looked up to older musicians like father figures. Louis Armstrong or Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole or Howlin’ Wolf—I never really thought about it that way, but maybe it was that I needed parental guidance or something." - Tom Waits

“Most artists you hear are really doing bad imitations of other people, And they’re afraid you’re going to notice it. If Howlin’ Wolf told you he was really trying to sound like Jimmie Rodgers, you’d say ‘nice try, missed it by a mile.’ Well, that mile is his work…. To me, what artists do is take in all this information and send back a picture of something that’s moving. Recordings are like little postings, an ongoing conversation that’s part of living culture. You’re always sending feelers out, to find new protein or carbohydrates, and sometimes what you bring back is a Salvation Army relic. Sometimes the most pleasant thing is to go backwards.” - Tom Waits

both from Paul Maher's Tom Waits on Tom Waits: Interviews and Encounters