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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the moment of inspiration and aspiration that sparked a desire for self-expression in the speaker.
In this quote, Nick Cave shares a formative experience from his childhood that ignited his passion for performance and creativity. Watching a monkey play music on television, he felt an instant connection and possibility, realizing that he wanted to create and express himself in a similar way. This moment demonstrates how inspiration can come from unexpected places and how it can shape one's aspirations and identity.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about following your dreams.
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.
The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil.
But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .
Music is storming, driving, relentless, devotional, slinky, subtle, heartbreakingly-beautiful sounds that, lyrically, switch from the cynical to the sanguine, the defeated to the defiant, dealing in love, war, beauty, children, romance, rejection, Pethedine, poetry, panties, God, Auden, Johnny Cash, cold potatoes, too-much-money, not enough money, writer’s block, flowers, animals and more flowers. But maybe I’m projecting here.
Who knows their own story? It certainly makes no sense when you’re in the middle of it
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
I was seeing a lot of entrepreneurs who were effectively working on the next photo-sharing app. I wanted to inspire them to go much bigger, bolder and more significant than that.
When I put on our U.S. kit, I do it for my family and for my country. But I understand now that I also do it for every single American girl out there who wants to see someone who looks like them - someone whose story reminds them of their own - when they watch their women's national team.
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.
One person of integrity can make a difference.
This year I am choosing to live beyond my wildest dreams. I wonder where they'll take me.
Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know.
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