Tom Verlaine

My non-career. My excuse for a career? Honestly, I never think about the word 'career.' I've had managers, the minute they say…

— Tom Verlaine

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live.

— Tom Verlaine

I'm not even sure who my audience is.

— Tom Verlaine

Johnny Jewel is how people were maybe two hundred years ago. Back then, when people got up in the morning, they knew…

— Tom Verlaine

Everybody's out trying to be commercial. I'm not trying to be anything, really.

— Tom Verlaine

I don't want any production credit. I think producers are overrated. They're for people who, first of all, don't know anything about…

— Tom Verlaine

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way…

— Tom Verlaine

I'd never assume an audience was anything but totally receptive and perfect. Seriously, it seems to me that's the only circumstance you…

— Tom Verlaine

I've got a quote for you, a good quote to describe Television...In madness there is order.

— Tom Verlaine

I told somebody in Europe I was 43. I never tell my true age. It's ridiculous that people ask. The press doesn't…

— Tom Verlaine

I don't think anybody thinks about their past much, unless they're in a mental institution.

— Tom Verlaine

All the Frank O'Hara types seem to have very little sound stuff going... it's so chatty or something.

— Tom Verlaine

It's like first grade where you make all your mistakes and people see it and yet some people see that there's something…

— Tom Verlaine

Emily Dickinson has great sound and sense.

— Tom Verlaine

I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record…

— Tom Verlaine

Well, I worked in a sheet metal factory once and scarred my wrist from the cuts. I found a sympathetic psychiatrist who…

— Tom Verlaine

The song Venus de Milo, the whole subject of it is Love is a drug.

— Tom Verlaine

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

— Tom Verlaine

You can't get so interested in just making sounds. The point of it all is some kind of expression.

— Tom Verlaine

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

— Tom Verlaine

Yeah, I'd say there's probably about a couple of hundred people I admire - but that has nothing to do with what…

— Tom Verlaine

In Old English they don't say I had a dream, but there's another usage of the word - "life is but a…

— Tom Verlaine

The Beat thing happened when I was younger. I used to run away from home, inspired by the Beats, like in '64…

— Tom Verlaine

I always thought I was commercial. I always thought I was writing hit singles. These days, whatever's on the radio is considered…

— Tom Verlaine

I never liked mellow sounding guitar.

— Tom Verlaine