When you're on your own, you have all the self-censorship that everybody has when they try and write. All the little voices that say, 'No, you can't write that, what will they think of that?'
Interpretation
Self-censorship can hinder creativity, especially when writing alone.
In this quote, Nick Cave highlights the struggle of self-censorship that many writers face when they lack external validation. When alone, writers can become overly critical of their thoughts, worrying about how others might perceive their ideas, which can stifle genuine expression and creativity.
In practice
This quote can inspire aspiring writers at a workshop to embrace their unique voices.
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
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.
Keep one thing in view forever- the truth; and if you do this, though it may seem to lead you away from the opinion of men, it will assuredly conduct you to the throne of God.
Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action.
There [is] no innocence more dangerous than the innocence of age.
If you have no eyes, do not walk blindly; take a staff in your hand. If you have no staff of insight, do not walk without a guide.
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.
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