Nick Cave

“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'm an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American - blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“I've always had an obligation to creation, above all.”

“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'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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I was about 12 years old and I was sitting watching the television and it was some kind of talent show, you know, and on marches this monkey, this ape, in a pair of red-checked trousers with a little matching jacket holding a ukelele and it started jigging around playing it, and it was looking straight into the camera, straight at me, and I remember thinking, that's it, that'll be me, you know, that'll be me.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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