Top 252 Quotes & Sayings by Nick Cave
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Australian musician Nick Cave.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song. What do I write about? I never know.
The work ethic at art school is completely different than the work ethic amongst people who get into music. People who paint, it's an honorable thing to spend all day and all night in front of your canvas - that is the romantic vision of the painter.
In getting older, I find myself becoming progressively more ineffectual in a lot of different ways, and part of that is down to no longer having the youthful feeling that what you're doing has any true impact.
You write a scene, and it works or it doesn't. It's immediate.
The only person who can say they're happy getting old is someone who isn't actually old yet. Every day, I get less and less happy about that idea.
I am not interested in anything that doesn't have a genuine heart to it. You've got to have soul in the hole. If that isn't there, I don't see the point.
To me, I don't write when I'm depressed. If I'm depressed, which is actually rare, I'm not doing anything, you know, and I'm not able to do anything.
Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.
I've always had an obligation to creation, above all.
My father was a teacher and my mother also worked in the school, so the family has a background in education.
My music has to do with beauty, and it's intended to, if not lift the spirits, then be a kind of a balm to the spirits.
I'm not a misogynist, so you can dispense with that. I think I've done wonders for the feminist movement.
Personally I find the story of Christ incredibly moving.
I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music.
Most of the time, feelings just seem to get in the way. They're a luxury for the idle, a bourgeois concept. Feelings are overrated.
When I perform onstage, I'm actually kind of nearsighted, so I don't have any real, true understanding of what the audience is like.
People often can't separate, or can't understand, that to be funny is to be serious; it's a way of pulling people in and not scaring them off. I think a lot of the funny stuff, underneath it, there's a deep anxiety going on.
Guns are part of the American psyche, aren't they? This is collateral damage for having a Wild West mentality. It's intrinsic to the American psyche. It's never going to change.
L.A. is full of screenwriters. I don't know why. On many levels, it's such a thankless occupation.
I think it's a part of us as human beings that we search outside of ourselves for meaning.
I have an armchair interest in gardening, but I don't like to get my knees dirty. I don't have a garden.
Musicians are at the bottom of the creative pyramid and authors are at the top, and many people think it's unacceptable for someone to attempt to jump from the bottom to the top of the pyramid.
The band is a living, breathing thing. It grows in the same way we do as human beings and if it doesn't, it dies. It's important to feed the organism, and one way of doing that is to set musical challenges that keep it alive.
I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.
If beautiful movies can influence you to go out and hug your children, then we have to be honest and say that other movies can inspire you to do bad things.
An artist's duty is rather to stay open-minded and in a state where he can receive information and inspiration. You always have to be ready for that little artistic Epiphany.
I would hate to think my songs were giving advice to people.
At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.
People think I'm a miserable sod but it's only because I get asked such bloody miserable questions.
I used to believe that if I could do certain things - write a book or be a successful musician - that I'd be transformed into a happy person, but it doesn't work that way.
There are methods to creating a mayhem that sounds different from your usual mayhem. Because mayhem and a heavy drum backbeat end up sounding like Green Day or something. But if you put a different beat within it to create some air and lightness, the chaos comes through better.
No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.
A rock musician's career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh.
I've spent my life butting my head against other people's lack of imagination.
Despite what people might think, I'm not interested in being dark all the time. I'm actually searching for some kind of light, and I'm always very happy when I can achieve that.
I've always been at war with the guitar. All vocalists are fighting a war with the electric rhythm guitar.
Accessible local libraries are vital to communities and to children.
After a while, you just don't do things you don't wanna do - that's the great freedom you get, the older you get. You learn what to do and what not to do, and what will be a waste of time and what won't be a waste of time.
I've always worn suits. To me they're a very practical kind of thing to wear. You put one on and don't really have to think about what you're going to wear.
I don't feel I'm thrown around by the winds of taste and fashion.
To my undying shame, I do read reviews. I don't read them all, but I like to get some kind of idea how things are going.
One of my big fears is drying up, and the more I create, the more I feel myself shrinking beneath the backlog of work I've done.
Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.
Getting married, for me, was the best thing I ever did. I was suddenly beset with an immense sense of release, that we have something more important than our separate selves, and that is the marriage. There's immense happiness that can come from working towards that.
There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.
The concept of God in America is very different than it is in England. Because we see the horrendous outcome of religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes, and the name of God has been used for their own twisted agendas.
I lost my innocence with Johnny Cash. I used to watch the 'Johnny Cash Show' on television in Wangaratta when I was about 9 or 10 years old. At that stage I had really no idea about rock n' roll. I watched him, and from that point I saw that music could be an evil thing - a beautiful, evil thing.
The more information you have, the more human our heroes become and consequently the less mysterious and godlike. They need to be godlike.
There's always pain around. That's one thing you can guarantee in life - there will always be a surplus of pain.
If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.
I write a lot, and very often I write a couple of lines that are particularly revealing in some kind of way. And then as a few more lines get added and a piece gets added, eventually the song pretty much takes over and you can't really find a way to change those things.
'Inspiration' is a word used by people who aren't really doing anything.
Moving to the country is a very bold thing to do. You can have vague romantic notions about doing that, but in actuality, it can be a terrifying thing.
I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one?
I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.
A gentleman never talks about his tailor.
I'm hugely self-critical in the morning.
At some point you start seeing the difference between what you really want, and what is your priority order. I feel that today I know what I want. That's the problem with perspective, as well as focus and concentration.
I'm not in the business of telling people what to do. I'm much more in the business of describing things, situations and stuff like that and leaving them out there, and you can make up your minds about them.
It's possible to get through life without a religious structure, but I don't think that's a very fruitful way to live.
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