Quotes by 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. Theres immense happiness that can come from working towards that.”

“People think Im a miserable sod but its only because I get asked such bloody miserable questions.”

“An artists 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 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 cant really find a way to change those things.”

“I think there is a certain perversity in my music in that I continue, you know, to eat at the same ball of vomit year after year.”

“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. Thats the problem with perspective, as well as focus and concentration.”

“Im very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. Its the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.”

“Im a believer. I dont go to church. I dont belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldnt write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.”

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

“Ive always had an obligation to creation, above all.”

I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I just found this world a hard place to be good in,’ says Bunny, then he closes his eyes and, with an expiration of breath, goes still.

I dont particularly believe all love is doomed. But I guess, one is usually kinda suffering from some aborted love affair or association, rather than being at the peak of one. I think its fairly obvious that a lot more suffering goes on in the name of love than the little happiness you can squeeze out of it.

There are those who work so they can stop. Stopping is the why of work.There are those who stop so they can work.Working is the why of work.

I was about 12 years old and I was sitting watching the television and it was some kind of talent show, you know, and on marches this monkey, this ape, in a pair of red-checked trousers with a little matching jacket holding a ukelele and it started jigging around playing it, and it was looking straight into the camera, straight at me, and I remember thinking, thats it, thatll be me, you know, thatll be me.

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been builtOut of longing great wonders have been willed

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.

The boy will grow older, and over time there will be other songs – not many – ten or maybe twenty in a lifespan, that stand apar 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.

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.

Who knows their own story? Certainly it makes no sense when we are living in the midst of it. Its all just clamor and confusion. It only becomes a story when we tell it and retell it. Our small precious recollections that we speak again and again to ourselves and to others, first creating the narrative of our lives and then keeping the story from dissolving into darkness.