Nick Cave Quotes - Page 8

The actualising of God through the medium of the love song remains my prime motivation as an artist.

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.

L.A. is full of screenwriters. I don't know why. On many levels, it's such a thankless occupation.

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

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

I have things that I'm interested in, and I'm not really interested in writing about anything that I'm not interested in. But it's important to me to be able to see it from a different perspective, and add something new to the whole picture.

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

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

Look, when I look back, from 20 onwards, I was actually having a pretty good time, I have to say.

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.

Love songs come in many guises and are seemingly written for many reasons – as declarations or to wound – I have written songs for all of these reasons – but ultimately the love songs exist to fill, with language, the silence between ourselves and God, to decrease the distance between the temporal and the divine.

My muse is my wife. It's not some vague thing that flutters around the astrosphere or wherever it is. Sometimes as a songwriter you need something to hang a song on, to give it some kind of presence and form. For me, Susie is that.

As Australians, we see the law as inherently bad. We have a real inherent distaste for authority in our makeup.

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.

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.

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.

Film seems to be a medium designed for betrayal and violence.

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?

Being a parent can make you a horrible person at times, because you're pushed to the limit constantly.

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

I don't know, maybe Australian humour isn't supposed to be funny. It's as dry as the Sahara, and I think people miss that.

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

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.

I have a particular dislike for children's films. I'm way past the novelty aspect.

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