black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Texting is apocalyptic on some level. It’s a reduction of things.

Nick Cave

It’s always a risky business inviting somebody on stage. You never know what they’re going to do. I try to avoid letting people join me onstage because it can be very distracting, and overly theatrical.
NICK CAVE

Business People Risky Trying
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

Country Moving Notion Romantic
I’m not in the business of telling people what to do. I’m much more in the business of describing things, situations and stuff like that and leaving them out there, and you can make up your minds about them.
NICK CAVE

Leaving Mind People
No wonder sorrow doesn’t smile much. No wonder sadness is so sad.
NICK CAVE

Sadness Sorrow Wonder
I’ve always had an obligation to creation, above all.
NICK CAVE

Always Creation Obligation
The singing tells everybody what to do musically.
NICK CAVE

Everybody Musically Singing
Everyone wants to feel that they matter.
NICK CAVE

Feels Matter Want
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

Comforting Lying Night
In the hysterical technocracy of modern music, sorrow is sent to the back of the class where it sits, pissing its pants in mortal terror.
NICK CAVE

Class Pants Sorrow
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 World Writing
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

Comedy Moments Reaching
I’m an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American – blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.
NICK CAVE

Country Grew Influence
The artistic process seems to be mythologized quite a lot into something far greater than it actually is. It is just hard labor.
NICK CAVE

Artistic Labor Process
That’s what we [outsiders] feel America is really about – the kind of crazed ravings of the Christian right – when it’s probably something quite different.
NICK CAVE

Christian Country Different People
I look at you and you look at me and deep in our hearts know it That you weren’t much of a muse, but then I weren’t much of a poet
NICK CAVE

Heart Looks Muse Poet
I think there’s a certain numbness in modern society, that accepts certain kinds of violence, but represses other kinds of violence.
NICK CAVE

Numbness Thinking Violence
And she moves among the sparrows. And she floats upon the breeze. She moves among the flowers. She moves something deep inside of me
NICK CAVE

Flower Moving Sparrow
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

Care Proud Room
If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.
NICK CAVE

Autumn Hard Work Years
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

Artists Museum Struggle
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
I don’t really care who collects my work, black, white, red, yellow. You have to also be consciously aware of, what does this mean in your home? And how are you supporting this work and the message behind the work?
NICK CAVE

Home Mean Yellow
The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil.
NICK CAVE

Air Heart Writing
To sustain hatred is a very difficult thing to do, year after year. It’s exhausting.
NICK CAVE

Difficult Hatred Years
If I’m hanging around too much, my wife and kids say, ‘Hey, why don’t you go downstairs and start a new novel?’
NICK CAVE

Hey Kids Wife
The songs that I like are the ones that you can’t visualize, that are just cries from the heart – those very straight, direct songs that make rock & roll music so wonderful.
NICK CAVE

Heart Rocks Song
Film seems to be a medium designed for betrayal and violence.
NICK CAVE

Betrayal Film Violence

Texting is apocalyptic on some level. It’s a reduction of things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Texting is apocalyptic on some level. It’s a reduction of things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Nick Cave Quotes