Nick Cave

At school I was an anti-magnet for women.

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 hugely self-critical in the morning.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.