Nick Cave quotes:

The concept of God in America is very different than it is in England. Because we see the horrendous outcome of religion as being an American thing, in which the name of God has been hijacked by a gang of psychopaths and bullies and homophobes, and the name of God has been used for their own twisted agendas.

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. There's immense happiness that can come from working towards that.

Guns are part of the American psyche, aren't they? This is collateral damage for having a Wild West mentality. It's intrinsic to the American psyche. It's never going to change.

I've spent my life butting my head against other people's lack of imagination.

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.

The work ethic at art school is completely different than the work ethic amongst people who get into music. People who paint, it's an honorable thing to spend all day and all night in front of your canvas - that is the romantic vision of the painter.

I love rock-n-roll. I think it's an exciting art form. It's revolutionary. Still revolutionary and it changed people. It changed their hearts. But yeah, even rock-n-roll has a lot of rubbish, really bad music.

I don't have any authority to talk about the domestic policies of America. But as an outsider, I am mystified by the fact that you are encouraged to buy a gun, but if you use it for the purpose that it is expressly designed for, you get the death penalty. That aspect of America is kind of mystifying.

People often can't separate, or can't understand, that to be funny is to be serious; it's a way of pulling people in and not scaring them off. I think a lot of the funny stuff, underneath it, there's a deep anxiety going on.

I'm hugely self-critical in the morning.

I was reading The Bible a lot through my 20s, mostly the Old Testament, just because I was knocked out by the language and the stories. I felt that the God being talked about there, who was this insane, vindictive patriarch - it was kind of thrilling, and titillated something in me at the time.

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.

I'm kind of old-school and love nothing more than sitting, opening a book, and reading it. But I also love listening to audio books.

I lost my innocence with Johnny Cash. I used to watch the 'Johnny Cash Show' on television in Wangaratta when I was about 9 or 10 years old. At that stage I had really no idea about rock n' roll. I watched him, and from that point I saw that music could be an evil thing - a beautiful, evil thing.

Early on I realized when you write a song about someone, it flatters them on some level, and gives you a lot of room to move within a relationship. A song can kind of get the girl, for sure.

No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.

Inspiration' is a word used by people who aren't really doing anything.

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

I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.

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

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 feel there's a font of ideas to fall back on.

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. That's the problem with perspective, as well as focus and concentration.

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

If beautiful movies can influence you to go out and hug your children, then we have to be honest and say that other movies can inspire you to do bad things.

Accessible local libraries are vital to communities and to children.

You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.

The last thing I ever wanted to get involved with is Hollywood. The way it works is that people get an idea you could possibly do something, but there's a one-in-a-hundred chance that it could get made.

Despite what people might think, I'm not interested in being dark all the time. I'm actually searching for some kind of light, and I'm always very happy when I can achieve that.

I am not interested in anything that doesn't have a genuine heart to it. You've got to have soul in the hole. If that isn't there, I don't see the point.

My father was a teacher and my mother also worked in the school, so the family has a background in education.

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

The only person who can say they're happy getting old is someone who isn't actually old yet. Every day, I get less and less happy about that idea.

Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.

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

If you're Australian, you feel it in your bones because you're at odds with everybody else, except other Australians, in the sense that people always seem to be behaving strangely. People always seem to be behaving the wrong way, in a different way. You say things and there are silences.

The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song.

The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song. What do I write about? I never know.

Most of the time, feelings just seem to get in the way. They're a luxury for the idle, a bourgeois concept. Feelings are overrated.

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

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 experiencing it in a completely different way and hearing stuff that they're alerted to because the way the interpret the world is through their ears. Mine is through my eyes.

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

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.

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

I consider myself to be first and foremost a comic writer. The way I entertain myself - especially in those long and grim hours in the office - is to write stuff I find funny.

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

I think it's a part of us as human beings that we search outside of ourselves for meaning.

I'm a believer. I don't go to church. I don't belong to any particular religion, but I do believe in God. I couldn't write what I write about and be creative without a certain form of belief.

If I'm hanging around too much, my wife and kids say, 'Hey, why don't you go downstairs and start a new novel?'

There's always pain around. That's one thing you can guarantee in life - there will always be a surplus of pain."

Then he smiles because he knows deep in his bones that his dad has gone and said something really funny probably. He kicks off his sheet and slides his feet into his slippers. Bunny sits in the living room, slumped low on the sofa, full of Geoffrey's Scotch and Poodle's cocaine."

Polly Jean, I love you. I love the texture of your skin, the taste of your saliva, the softness of your ears. I love every inch and every part of your entire body. From your toes and the beautifully curved arches of your feet, to the exceptional shade and warmth of your dark hair. I need you in my life, I hope you need me too.

An artist's 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.

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

I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one?

You searched through all my poets, From Sappho through to Auden, I saw the book fall from your hands, As you slowly died of boredom.

As people buy less and less records, it's become more and more important for me to spend more and more on them - to lavish that much more attention on them. The Bad Seeds were always quite protective and old school, but Grinderman has opened us up to do anything and be shameless. We're not so precious about it.

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.

Into the mercy seat I climb My head is shaved, my head is wired And like a moth that tries To enter the bright eye I go shuffling out of life Just to hide in death awhile And anyway I never lied.

This is how it essentially is for Bunny Junior. He loves his dad. He thinks there is no dad better, cleverer, or more capable, and he stands there beside him with a sense of pride - he's my dad - and he also, of course, stands beside him because he has nowhere else to go.

But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .

I am the captain of my pain.

God has matured. He is not the impulsive, bowel-less being of the Testaments - the vehement glory-monger, with His bag of cheap carny tricks and his booming voice - the fiery huckster with his burning bushes and his wonder wands. Nowadays God knows what He wants and He knows who He wants.

What we [outsiders] feel America is really about - the kind of crazed ravings of the Christian right - when it's probably something quite different.

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.

I love performing. I can get to be that person I always wanted to be - godlike.

I still feel very much an imposter in the whole music scene, which I'm quite happy about to be honest.

It's a wonderful life if you can find it.

The secret to longevity in the music business is to change, and to be able to change. An actor has to assume other people's identities. A rock star doesn't need to do that. But change is important.

To sustain hatred is a very difficult thing to do, year after year. It's exhausting.

Certainly being proficient in an instrument does have its problems. Because the better you get, the more you just start sounding like an ordinary guitarist. There are certainly guitarists that transcend that and do really find their sound and all that sort of stuff.

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.

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

A gentleman never talks about his tailor.

There's always pain around. That's one thing you can guarantee in life - there will always be a surplus of pain.

A rock musician's career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh.

When you're on your own, you have all the self-censorship that everybody has when they try and write. All the little voices that say, 'No, you can't write that, what will they think of that?'

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

What I'm resistant to is the 'Walk the Line' biopic, where you have this redemptive life done in two hours. It just doesn't wash with me. I've been there and things don't work out that way.

People think I'm a miserable sod but it's only because I get asked such bloody miserable questions.

I don't write happy songs. Who does? I don't know anybody who writes happy songs, really.

Rock music is the province of the young, and it should be made by young people. I'm not running around in a pair of spandex tights trying to reclaim my youth.

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

Musicians are at the bottom of the creative pyramid and authors are at the top, and many people think it's unacceptable for someone to attempt to jump from the bottom to the top of the pyramid.

The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.

I've always been at war with the guitar. All vocalists are fighting a war with the electric rhythm guitar.

I'm not a misogynist, so you can dispense with that. I think I've done wonders for the feminist movement.

I became a script writer with absolutely no idea of how to write a script whatsoever. I still feel a bit of an outsider in that regard. If I can maintain that approach to screenwriting, it can continue to be enjoyable.

I write hate lyrics really well. It's not every day you can use them, really.

Everything that's said against me offends me, whether it's true or not.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

Most people wait for the muse to turn up. That's terribly unreliable. I have to sit down and pursue the muse by attempting to work.

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

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

The idea of songwriting is a transformative thing, and what I do with songwriting is take situations that are quite ordinary and transform them in some way. Apart from things like the murder ballads, the songs I write, at their core, are quite ordinary human concerns, but the process of writing about them transforms them into something else.

My music has to do with beauty, and it's intended to, if not lift the spirits, then be a kind of a balm to the spirits.

The rock star is dying. And it's a small tragedy. Rock stars have blogs now. I have no use for that kind of rock star.

I just want to leave this world with a massive catalog of songs.

People are always surprised to see clues to my being a normal kind of guy. As if I'm somehow letting the team down.

At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.

There are methods to creating a mayhem that sounds different from your usual mayhem. Because mayhem and a heavy drum backbeat end up sounding like Green Day or something. But if you put a different beat within it to create some air and lightness, the chaos comes through better.

I'm a big fan of teatowels and am always on the lookout for a good one.

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.

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

I'm not saying this in a condescending kind of way, but it's quite simple: The making of America was a heroic thing. Australia has a much murkier, much more complex view of its history. It's just full of all these open wounds we don't really know what to do with.

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.

Songs you can dip in and out of, but a book... well, it can overpower you.

One of my big fears is drying up, and the more I create, the more I feel myself shrinking beneath the backlog of work I've done.

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

The blues is instilled in every musical cell that floats around your body.

It's possible to get through life without a religious structure, but I don't think that's a very fruitful way to live.

The more information you have, the more human our heroes become and consequently the less mysterious and godlike. They need to be godlike.

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.

I have a very strange relationship in general with women around my music. There's some that understand it and some that think there should be a law against it.

The band is a living, breathing thing. It grows in the same way we do as human beings and if it doesn't, it dies. It's important to feed the organism, and one way of doing that is to set musical challenges that keep it alive.

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

I'm not religious, and I'm not a Christian, but I do reserve the right to believe in the possibility of a god.

A is for Answering all your prayers, N is for kNowing that your loverman's going to be the answer...

After a while, you just don't do things you don't wanna do - that's the great freedom you get, the older you get. You learn what to do and what not to do, and what will be a waste of time and what won't be a waste of time.

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

And I wish that I was made of stone So that I would not have to see A beauty impossible to define A beauty impossible to believe A beauty impossible to endure The blood imparted in little sips The smell of you still on my hands As I bring the cup up to my lips No God up in the sky No devil beneath the sea Could do the job that you did, baby Of bringing me to my knees