Nick Cave

If you took love out of the equation, I wouldn't know what else to write about.

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.

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.

In getting older, I find myself becoming progressively more ineffectual in a lot of different ways, and part of that is down to no longer having the youthful feeling that what you're doing has any true impact.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.