Nick Cave Quotes

No fish can swim until the King is born, until the King is born in Tupelo. ~ Nick Cave

Everybody tends to overplay live. That's just the nature of playing live. And that can be great, but it can also kill something that's special, and intimate, about a recorded version of a song. You find out very quickly which songs you can play, and which songs you do damage to by playing them live. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

All of our days are numbered; we cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it. If you can hold on to that flame great things can be constructed around it that are massive and powerful and world changing – all held up by the tinniest of ideas. ~ Nick Cave

When I start writing songs, and they come easily, I'm always very suspicious. That usually means they're reminding me of something I've already done before. When the songs become unsettling, and I feel anxious about what I'm doing, that usually means it's going to be more interesting later on when we actually record the stuff. ~ Nick Cave

Do I personally believe in a personal God? No. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

It's always a pleasure on a personal note for me to come back to Australia. ~ Nick Cave

The boy will grow older, and over time there will be other songs – not many – ten or maybe twenty in a lifespan, that stand apart from the rest of the music he will discover. He will realise as he grows older still, and crosses the Canadian border and drives down into Seattle, that not only are these songs holy or sacred, they are hiding songs – what the Aztec Indians call carrion songs – that deal exclusively in darkness, obfuscation, concealment and secrecy. He will realize that, for him, the purpose of these songs has been to shut off the sun, to draw a long shadow down and protect him from the corrosive glare of the world. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

My biggest fear is losing memory because memory is what we are. Your very soul and your very reason to be alive is tied up in memory. ~ Nick Cave

That's what I like about watching a movie: you enter an imagined world that's more interesting, more engaging than your own. Or less painful than your own. ~ Nick Cave

I always thought my records were number one; it's just the charts didn't think so. ~ Nick Cave

There are a few artists that I'm really into. I mean, I'm a big Nick Cave fan. And there's a band from Australia called Big Heavy Stuff that's one of my favorite bands ever. ~ J. Robbins

Listen, ah don't wanna speak ill of the dead but have ah told you that mah mother was a great whopping whale of a cunt? Well she was precisely that - a great whopping whale of a hog's cunt with a dirty maggot for a brain. ~ Nick Cave

Most of my ideals and stuff really come from my mother. ~ Nick Cave

Into the mercy seat I climb My head is shaved, my head is wired And like a moth that tries To enter the bright eye I go shuffling out of life Just to hide in death awhile And anyway I never lied. ~ Nick Cave

Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave know best. Although I wear a lot of jeans, I've been told that Nick Cave doesn't own a pair and wouldn't be caught dead in denim. ~ Matt Berninger

Vagina man,' said Bunny, and his two colleagues went quiet and nodded in silent agreement. ~ Nick Cave

I don't write happy songs. Who does? I don't know anybody who writes happy songs, really. ~ Nick Cave

I write songs from the point of view I had at a time;I'm not tryingto write songs from a young person's point of view.That only ends in disaster. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

I look down at the city again. From here the city resembles a severed head, incinerated and discarded by the side of the river; its cavernous eye sockets are empty, bundles of dead nerves dangle from its neck, its shattered mouth gapes, a few desolate wires hang from its stark, scorched skull and, suddenly and incomprehensibly and so foreign to my body I could weep, I feel my heart expand with what I can only describe as a sensation of hope. Is there a word for that? Hope in the face of grand calamity. ~ Nick Cave

I'm not a misogynist, so you can dispense with that. I think I've done wonders for the feminist movement. ~ Nick Cave

I want to write songs that are so sad, the kind of sad where you take someone's little finger and break it in three places. ~ Nick Cave

My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature.
She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves - in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. ~ Nick Cave

I think there's a certain numbness in modern society, that accepts certain kinds of violence, but represses other kinds of violence. ~ Nick Cave

I would hate to think my songs were giving advice to people. ~ Nick Cave

Not a specific song. What I do maybe love above all about Nick Cave is how he's created this universe, this world, where there are all these characters and songs and themes. It's very unique, and I appreciate it. It's very hard to say that I have a specific favourite; I just actually love everything that he does. ~ Mirel Wagner

Stars have their moments then they die. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

In the end, I'm not interested in that which I fully understand. The words I have written over the years are just a veneer. There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the words... truths that rise up without warning, like the humps of a sea monster and then disappear. What performance and song is to me is finding a way to tempt the monster to the surface, to create a space, where the creature can break through what is real and what is known to us. This shimmering space, where imagination and reality intersect... this is where all love and tears and joy exist. This is the place. This is where we live. ~ Nick Cave

I'm a big fan of teatowels and am always on the lookout for a good one. ~ Nick Cave

The body becomes the carrier for the work. It's not really about the physical body; it really becomes the apparatus that carries and moves the work. I don't really consider the body as much; I look at it as a tool. ~ Nick Cave

When?' said the moon to the stars in the sky
Soon' said the wind that followed them all
Who?' said the cloud that started to cry
Me' said the rider as dry as a bone
How?' said the sun that melted the ground
and 'Why?' said the river that refused to run
and 'Where?' said the thunder without a sound
Here' said the rider and took up his gun
No' said the stars to the moon in the sky
No' said the trees that started to moan
No' said the dust that blunted its eyes
Yes' said the rider as white as a bone
No' said the moon that rose from his sleep
No' said the cry of the dying sun
No' said the planet as it started to weep
Yes' said the rider and laid down his gun ~ Nick Cave

A rock musician's career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh. ~ Nick Cave

I've been a Nick Cave fan since the early '80s when he was part of The Birthday Party thing singing Australian self-destructive rock band and I've always followed his work and loved it. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

Outside the world of politics, one person in the world of the arts I would mention as an influence is Nick Cave, another person who has been around since the late 1970s. He has developed and changed remarkably, whilst remaining true to his vision. He has been a great help to me as well, without his knowing it. ~ Nick Cave

I've watched 'Oprah Winfrey.' And I'm proud. I don't care what anybody says! I don't know whether I've watched it. I've been in the room while it's been on. ~ Nick Cave

and that makes him wish all over again that his dad would stop crying, so he can have a turn. ~ Nick Cave

I don't feel I'm thrown around by the winds of taste and fashion. ~ Nick Cave

I love being manipulated by what I see. I love weepies and romantic comedies where you're reaching for the Kleenex at the right moment. ~ Nick Cave

Brother, be a brother, fill this tiny cup of mine. And please, sir, make it whiskey: I have no head for wine! ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

There's always pain around. That's one thing you can guarantee in life - there will always be a surplus of pain. ~ Nick Cave

I write hate lyrics really well. It's not every day you can use them, really. ~ Nick Cave

I think I have always had a pretty strong creative impulse. And that has probably saved me from abandoning myself completely. ~ Nick Cave

You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan. ~ Nick Cave

Nature Boy

I was just a boy when I sat down
To watch the news on TV
I saw some ordinary slaughter
I saw some routine atrocity
My father said, don't look away
You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now
He said, that in the end it is beauty
That is going to save the world, now

And she moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
She moves something deep inside of me

I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria
You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me
With some unrighteous intention?
My knees went weak,
I couldn't speak, I was having thoughts
That were not in my best interests to mention

And she moves among the flowers
And she floats upon the smoke
She moves among the shadows
She moves me with just one little look

You took me back to your place
And dressed me up in a deep sea diver's suit
You played the patriot, you raised the flag
And I stood at full salute
Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb
And made it impossible to speak
As you closed in, in slow motion,
Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek

She moves among the shadows
She floats upon the breeze
She moves among ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

There are times when I think I can sing it better, but usually I find that I can't. ~ Nick Cave

You don't meet a lot of people that you really like. I don't anyway. ~ Nick Cave

It's an Australian thing to be dismissive. We find that endearing. Americans don't. They believe what you say. ~ Nick Cave

Most screen violence is tedious. ~ Nick Cave

The more information you have, the more human our heroes become and consequently the less mysterious and godlike. They need to be godlike. ~ Nick Cave

If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that. ~ Nick Cave

I think it's an essential fact for any performer or artist to fail as poignantly as they can succeed. ~ Nick Cave

The older I get, the more I feel those kinds of ghosts - especially the women in my life - moving out of the shadows a bit more and becoming more present in my life. ~ Nick Cave

I've never been interested in being relevant. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

I saw a sick man pick up his instrument and be well ~ Nick Cave

The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new. ~ Nick Cave

I am the captain of my pain. ~ Nick Cave

I can control the weather with my moods. I just can't control my moods. ~ Nick Cave

The love song must be born into the realm of the irrational, absurd, the distracted, the melancholic, the obsessive, the insane for the love song is the noise of love itself and love is, of course, a form of madness. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

Some people, myself in particular, have an adversarial relationship with the camera, and it sprouts up in every photograph. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

He who seeks, finds, and who knocks, will be let in, ~ Nick Cave

You're collaborating with people you don't even know, when you're making a film. You're collaborating with people you've never seen. So, the collaborative process is very, very different than when you're collaborating on a record with the musicians you've worked with all your life. ~ Nick Cave

I've always hated narrative songs. I hate those songs where, basically, it's an unfolding of a story. ~ Nick Cave

We sit at the gate and scratch, the gaunt fruit of passion. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

What I'm resistant to is the 'Walk the Line' biopic, where you have this redemptive life done in two hours. It just doesn't wash with me. I've been there and things don't work out that way. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

I suspect the older you get the more invisible you become. ~ Nick Cave

Memory is imagined; it is not real. Don't be ashamed of its need to create; it is the loveliest part of your heart. Myth is the true history. Don't let them tell you that there are no monsters. Don't let them make you feel stupid, just because you are happy to play down in the dark with your flashlight. The mystical world depends on you and your tolerance for the absurd. Be strong, my darling ones, and believe! ~ Nick Cave

Kylie Minogue is the greatest thing that has happened to Australian music. ~ Nick Cave

Songs you can dip in and out of, but a book ... well, it can overpower you. ~ Nick Cave

What I think about when I frequent the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan [Museum of Art], and I look at these artifacts that are taken out of context and how we're forced to view them as objects, as relics, as sculpture- static. But what's interesting is what it allows me to do in my head in terms of imagining what the possibilities are or imagining the role in which they played within a particular culture which I'm fascinated by. ~ Nick Cave

The butcher bird makes its noise
And asks you to agree
With its brutal nesting habits
And its pointless savagery
Now, the nightingale sings to you
And raises up the ante
I put one hand on your round ripe heart
And the other down your panties ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

One thing that I'm really interested in is the kind of esoteric detail that surrounds these great figures. And Wikipedia is full of that kind of stuff, whether it's true or untrue. It staggers me: why, in the short space assigned to a person or an event, that kind of random information is there. To be honest, that's wonderful fuel for songwriting. ~ Nick Cave

I see it as my duty in some way is to be out in the world as an Australian putting forward what I consider to be authentic Australian music. ~ Nick Cave

At school I was an anti-magnet for women. ~ Nick Cave

When I'm singing 'Deanna,' for example, which I sing pretty much every night, it brings forward a kind of imagined, romanticized lie about this particular person, which I find really comforting and exciting to sing about. ~ Nick Cave

If you took love out of the equation, I wouldn't know what else to write about. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave

We cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all. Because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand, and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it. If you could hold onto that flame, great things could construct around it, that are massive and powerful and world changing, all held up by the tiniest of ideas. ~ Nick Cave

My true intent is all for your delight. ~ Nick Cave

The days are passing so quickly. This is the only time of year when I want to slow time down. I spend the entire year trying to get here as fast as I can, then once I'm here I want to slam on the brakes. I'm beginning to have those moments when the feel of autumn is so strong it drowns out everything else. Lately it's been making me think about the perfect soundtrack for a Halloween party.

The top of any Halloween music list as to be the theme song from the movie Halloween; right on its heels is "Pet Sematary" by the Ramones. For some reason I've always equated the old Van Morrison song "Moondance" with Halloween, too. I love that song. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus is an October classic, as well as anything by Type O Negative. And Midnight Syndicate. If you've never heard anything by Midnight Syndicate, look them up right this moment. If you distilled the raw essence of every spooky story you ever heard, you would have Midnight Syndicate. I have a friend who swears by them, believing them to be a vital element of any Halloween party. To finish off the list you must have "The Lyre of Orpheus" by Nick Cave and "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle. ~ Damien Echols

A gentleman never talks about his tailor. ~ Nick Cave

I won't go into the details, but I ready myself for the day. I am a high-maintenance type of guy. ~ Nick Cave

Polly Jean, I love you. I love the texture of your skin, the taste of your saliva, the softness of your ears. I love every inch and every part of your entire body. From your toes and the beautifully curved arches of your feet, to the exceptional shade and warmth of your dark hair. I need you in my life, I hope you need me too. ~ Nick Cave

Said 2,000 years of Christian history, baby
And you ain't learned to love me yet? ~ Nick Cave

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
out of longing great wonders have been willed
they're only little tears darling let them spill
and lay your head upon my shoulder. ~ Nick Cave

The idea of acting is something that absolutely repulses me. I just can't do it. I'm terrible at it. I get roped into films every now and then, and it's always a disaster. ~ Nick Cave

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. ~ Nick Cave