Nick Cave Quotes

I feel the responsibility to make things which on some level have something positive to say.

My songs are self-explanatory... somebody pointed out to me that... my songs pretty much speak for themselves.

I haven't worked enough to worry about getting typecast, but I do as a film lover didn't want to be working with the bad guys. I didn't want to be making a movie I thought was contributing to a lower base of movies that I just didn't think were helping people, really.

People will always blame the poets for society's ills. But these are the true artists.

I do think the moral line you walk all the time about putting something in for the sake of the film and not being affected by people's lives is a very tough one.

I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.

We don't analyze our lyrics.

I do have a responsibility, but I would make the most boring films in the world if I woke up every morning worrying about my social responsibility.

It is the responsibility of a director to introduce their politics in their films, and whether you like it or not your politics will be reflected unless you are an opportunist which some directors are.

I think there is a value in leaving the world a little better off, and movies can do that in a minor way.

People misinterpret my lyrics sometimes too, but I mean, it is what it is.

I really believe in the power of cinema, and with it comes a responsibility to impart some sort of message for the better.

Don't use your film for ugly purpose.

Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.

Poems aren't postcards to send home.

I started with the belief that every person who came to the laboratory was free to accept or to reject the dictates of authority. This view sustains a conception of human dignity insofar as it sees in each man a capacity for choosing his own behavior. And as it turned out, many subjects did, indeed, choose to reject the experimenter's commands, providing a powerful affirmation of human ideals.

The artist and his work are not to be separated. The most willfully foolish man cannot stand aloof from his folly, but the deed and the doer together make ever one sober fact.

A man may act as his conscience dictates so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. That is the spirit of true democracy, and all government by the Priesthood should be actuated by that same high motive.

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn't be here today.

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.

Art is a human act, a generous contribution, something that might not work, and it is intended to change the recipient for the better, often causing a connection to happen.

Just as the creative artist is not allowed to choose, neither is he permitted to turn his back on anything: a single refusal, and he is cast out of the state of grace and becomes sinful all the way through.

I think everyone is always asking themselves, How is my work meaningful, how is my life meaningful? As I get older, I feel like who I am as a person and a citizen is more important than who I am in my work. But I do think it reframed slightly for me, how much I have to care about a project in order to want to do it. Sometimes, obviously, you have a take a job for money. But I think I'm quicker now when I get a script that's, say, borderline misogynist, I'm not going to go in for it. I'm thinking more about what I'm putting into the world.

Most of the books that I've adapted I'm doing because I love the book and I feel like it's a great work of art in itself, and when it's a great book I feel as a director or a writer that I have a responsibility to rise to the level of the original. It makes me try to reach higher.