Nick Cave

And I kissed away a thousand tears My lady of the Various Sorrows Some begged, some borrowed, some stolen Some kept safe…

— Nick Cave

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

— Nick Cave

My biggest fear is losing memory because memory is what we are. Your very soul and your very reason to be alive…

— 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 don't really do Japanese interviews. I don't think there's much call for me in Japan.

— Nick Cave

I have an armchair interest in gardening, but I don't like to get my knees dirty. I don't have a garden.

— Nick Cave

When I perform onstage, I'm actually kind of nearsighted, so I don't have any real, true understanding of what the audience is…

— 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'm not someone who's particularly in touch with the way they feel. I've heard it said that you should be a 'human…

— 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…

— Nick Cave

When you're on your own, you have all the self-censorship that everybody has when they try and write. All the little voices…

— Nick Cave

Certainly being proficient in an instrument does have its problems. Because the better you get, the more you just start sounding like…

— Nick Cave

Death looms large I guess because it should. It's the one thing that we as human beings from birth have a right…

— Nick Cave

I'm not saying this in a condescending kind of way, but it's quite simple: The making of America was a heroic thing.…

— Nick Cave

The songs that I like are the ones that you can't visualize, that are just cries from the heart - those very…

— Nick Cave

I know when I sit with my band members and we're playing back a song that we've done, I know that they're…

— 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

My records are basically a litany of complaints against the world, and I'm quite like that in real life as well.

— Nick Cave

The older I get, the more I feel those kinds of ghosts - especially the women in my life - moving out…

— Nick Cave

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

— Nick Cave

Rock music is the province of the young, and it should be made by young people. I'm not running around in a…

— Nick Cave

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…

— Nick Cave

I see it as my duty in some way is to be out in the world as an Australian putting forward what…

— Nick Cave

“You ain't got no self-respect, you feel like an insect Well don't you worry buddy, cause here he comes”

— Nick Cave

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

— Nick Cave

In the hysterical technocracy of modern music, sorrow is sent to the back of the class where it sits, pissing its pants…

— Nick Cave

“Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built Out of longing great wonders have been willed”

— Nick Cave

“I am damned,' thinks Bunny Munro in a sudden moment of self-awareness reserved for those who are soon to die.”

— Nick Cave

I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way.

— Nick Cave

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

— 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.…

— Nick Cave

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

— Nick Cave

“You've got to understand your limitations. It's your limitations that make you the wonderful disaster you most probably are.”

— Nick Cave

What I want people to recognize is that we have to keep working together and take charge because we all have the…

— Nick Cave

We as visual artists need to continue to be renegades and say, "Yes I am here to do a project, but what…

— Nick Cave

Songwriting, I have to take myself away from everybody to do. It's an unsightly act.

— Nick Cave

With writing a song, I've always felt, right from the start, like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don't ever…

— Nick Cave

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

— Nick Cave

If beautiful movies can influence you to go out and hug your children, then we have to be honest and say that…

— Nick Cave

Writing is a necessary thing for me, just to keep myself level. It has beneficial effects on my life.

— Nick Cave