QuoteProject
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.
Nick Cave
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

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.

Themes

InspirationTalentAspirationPerformanceMusic

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech about following your dreams.

More from Nick Cave

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.
Nick CaveRead
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.
Nick CaveRead
But if you're gonna dine with them cannibals Sooner or later, darling, you're gonna get eaten . . .
Nick CaveRead
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.
Nick CaveRead
Who knows their own story? It certainly makes no sense when you’re in the middle of it
Nick CaveRead
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
Nick CaveRead

Similar quotes

Never stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming. And don’t be afraid of wearing your heart on your sleeve - in declaring the films that you love, the films that you want to make, the life that you’ve had, and the lives you can help reflect in cinema. For myself, for a long time… maybe I felt inauthentic or something, I felt like my voice wasn’t worth hearing, and I think everyone’s voice is worth hearing. So if you’ve got something to say, say it from the rooftops.
Tom HiddlestonRead
The brightest star on a cloudless night_x000D_ _x000D_ Some kind of miracle, almost empty sky..._x000D_ _x000D_ Just as the bite of the blade wakes the absent mind_x000D_ _x000D_ There's time to dream and there's time to open your eyes
Dave MatthewsRead
Being called ugly and fat and disgusting to look at from the time I could barely understand what the words meant has scarred me so deep inside that I have learned to hunt, stalk, claim, own and defend my own loveliness.
Margaret ChoRead
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir are not superhuman. They are ordinary people with ordinary frailties. But therein lies the power of their example.
Russell M. NelsonRead
Tell me, why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?.
Abdul KalamRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.