Latest Nick Cave Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• What I want people to recognize is that we have to keep working together and take charge because we all have the same story.

  Nick Cave

  People, Together, Working Together

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The singing tells everybody what to do musically.

  Nick Cave

  Singing

  Source: pitchfork.com

• When I start to write a song, I initially fall into patterns and creative habits that are familiar, and because they're familiar, they sound convincing. It's important for me to not pursue those ideas, because I've already done them, but to find ideas that are different and feel strange to write and disconcerting to write.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Fall, Writing

  Source: pitchfork.com

• Jesus Christ was the biggest blight on the human race, he was. And all them socialists and communists - second rate Christianity.

  Nick Cave

  Jesus, Christianity, Communist

  Source: thequietus.com

• Cynicism and defensiveness are two things constantly levelled at me. Look, I've got time for people, I'm good mannered. I usually find that when you're down, nobody has a bloody minute for you. If I was a nobody, you wouldn't even talk to me. People, in general, don't like you being upfront and civil. They hate you for it. They label you a cynic 'cos you're reasonable.

  Nick Cave

  Hate, People, Good Man

  Source: thequietus.com

• The way people reacted to me in dressing rooms and so on was incredibly aggressive. They know every record and they seem to think they should nudge me or bump into me as they go past. It was this incredible performance that used to amuse me. In the early days, people were drawn towards us like they'd be drawn towards a car smash...There is a definite relationship between that fanaticism and the fan that, as a performer, you expose more of yourself, of the undercurrents of your personality. Most rock personalities subdue that or choose not to explore it.

  Nick Cave

  Past, Thinking, People

  Source: thequietus.com

• I feel like I've spent the last five years of my life on the road. It hasn't affected my songs but it's probably affected everything else about me. Obviously, the more you travel, the wilder the things that keep happening to you, the more likely it is you'll get complete strangers knocking on your hotel room door.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Stranger, Hotel

  Source: thequietus.com

• An audience is the perfect thing to unleash venom and hate on. It doesn't necessarily mean you hate everyone in the audience but when you've got a so-called adoring mass in front of you, it's a perfect target for that kind of disgust. Sometimes you find yourself in a position where you're venting your disgust on an audience and a lot of them keep coming back 'cos they actually like that aspect. In a way that diffuses the feeling and you don't gel the same release.

  Nick Cave

  Hate, Mean, Perfect

  Source: thequietus.com

• I write songs in batches and then record them and then can't write again for ages. I try and build one song upon another, they may not obviously look inter-related but often one song acts as a springboard into another.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Writing, Age

  Source: thequietus.com

• Some are exploring the world through the subconscious. I've done that on occasions for various reasons, whether it be illness or self abuse, or whatever. Once things start to look grotesque I don't write them or sing them. I couldn't write them - making nightmares into living daylight...The minute it gets dark I shoot back, retreat.

  Nick Cave

  Writing, Dark, Abuse

  Source: thequietus.com

• We as visual artists need to continue to be renegades and say, "Yes I am here to do a project, but what is the social service?"

  Nick Cave

  Artist, Needs, Social

  Interview with Tori Bush, www.dailyserving.com. December 4, 2015.

• I have to be able to pull you in. How can I diversify my audiences? What role do I have to play to be part of that shift? I have to take that seriously.

  Nick Cave

  Play, Roles, Able

  Interview with Tori Bush, www.dailyserving.com. December 4, 2015.

• We are still struggling with people who don't feel comfortable going into museums. As a visual artist I ask how artists can be part of enacting a change.

  Nick Cave

  Struggle, Artist, Museums

  Interview with Tori Bush, dailyserving.com. December 4, 2015.

• When you've been initiated, you can stand in the world differently. And I think it is up to all of us, we can have cheerleaders, we can have supporters, but it comes down to us as individuals, how do we now proceed? Do we have the tools to proceed?

  Nick Cave

  Thinking, Tools, World

  Interview with Tori Bush, www.dailyserving.com. December 4, 2015.

• Everyone wants to feel that they matter.

  Nick Cave

  Want, Matter, Feels

  Interview with Tori Bush, www.dailyserving.com. December 4, 2015.

• Anything that I'm doing I'm writing specifically for a particular project.

  Nick Cave

  Writing, Projects, Particular

• The editing of a song is largely what makes the song for me and I think that actually if I had started going like 'I want you to burn' it would have pinned that song down to a particular thing and made that song a smaller idea than what it is. By leaving that off it's much more open, broader.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Thinking, Editing

• I've always done a lot of research and stuff around the songs that I write so there are pages and pages of writing and you can kind of see these songs emerging.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Writing, Done

• I've had to try and find a way over the years of writing narratively that doesn't really require you to sit down and work out what the story's about. You're brought into a sort of sequence of images that have that emotional resonance, but it's kind of irrelevant what the actual story is. It's taken me maybe 13 albums or something to work that out.

  Nick Cave

  Taken, Writing, Emotional

• The way I go about writing records is that I make a calendar date to start the new record, so I have nothing. I don't have a bunch of notes that I bring into the office, I start with nothing at all.

  Nick Cave

  Writing, Office, Calendars

• I don't like those songs where you have to listen to a story to get into them. I don't want to have to pay attention to music in that way, I just want it to hit me in the heart and do what music's supposed to do.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Heart, Attention

• I have to be able to see the thing that's going on that I'm writing about, or else it just doesn't make any sense to me.

  Nick Cave

  Writing, Able

• I'm unable to really write the kind of song that doesn't have a visual element, which most songs don't.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Writing, Elements

• There's that kind of song, "Whoah baby, I love you," which doesn't have a visual element, but a very strong emotional element, and these are the great songs to me - those ones that you put them on and they just make you feel great, or whatever.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Baby, Strong

• The way I take in the world is by seeing it; that is very much evident in the songs that I write.

  Nick Cave

  Song, Writing, World