Oberst Quotes & Sayings

My head's a carousel of pictures and The spinning never stops. — Conor Oberst

It's hard to get people to focus on one idea. — Conor Oberst

I keep my eyes closed a lot when I'm singing because sometimes it's distracting to see people. — Conor Oberst

We're going to sing about things that matter to us. The balancing act is to present these ideas but also make the music exciting and sort of fun enough that even if you're not paying attention to the lyrics, you might still like the songs anyway. That's the idea. — Conor Oberst

The sound of loneliness makes me happier. — Conor Oberst

I'll write about myself, or people I know, or archetypal characters, but the goal is to get at some truth, not to necessarily convey my own experience as an individual to the world. — Conor Oberst

If I could act like This was my real life, And not some cage where I've been placed, Well then, I could tell you The truth like I used to And not be afraid of sounding fake. — Conor Oberst

We're all too busy working, entertaining ourselves With forty hours, television and prescription pills Well, I take two a day to help my brain behave It never does, but who's to say? At least my doctor gets paid. — Conor Oberst

In a way, to have whatever people talk about as "crossover success," I think it means you start making bad music. I mean, when I'm flipping through the channels and see the VMAs or something, I don't really see any music there. — Conor Oberst

I was raised Catholic, and I have an aversion to anyone who takes religion to the extreme. — Conor Oberst

When everything is lonely I can be my best friend. — Conor Oberst

Sometimes I daydream about having a farm and a wife and some babies and watching the grass grow, but you have to meet the right person for that. — Conor Oberst

The best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way. — Conor Oberst

I'm a real music fan, so I listen to all kinds of music all the time. I listen to a lot of what my friends or people I know are listening to. I'm always checking out new bands. — Conor Oberst

If the world could remain within a frame like a painting on the wall, I think we'd see the beauty then and stand staring in awe. — Conor Oberst

I'm not the most technically savvy person in the world. Like, I'm not good at troubleshooting when stuff happens to my digital music. — Conor Oberst

Although Omaha is my birthplace and the place I grew up, I don't see myself spending extended amounts of time there. I feel almost more comfortable and more at peace in New York. — Conor Oberst

I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone. — Conor Oberst

We've all seen the power music has to spread messages of solidarity and hope. — Conor Oberst

Men with purple hearts carry silver guns and they will kill a man for what his father has done. But what my father did, I don't live it: no, I am not him. — Conor Oberst

I don't feel real confident expressing myself except when I'm writing. I feel kind of scatterbrained. I can see everything from both sides and that makes it hard to reach conclusions. Writing enables me to clarify things. — Conor Oberst

I'm always fascinated when people really fervently believe, because I have such a hard time believing anything. When people have real faith in something, it's fascinating to me. And the fact that so many people, in surveys, so many people say they do. It kind of blows my mind. — Conor Oberst

On every Bright Eyes record, there's some kind of sound collage that begins it. Some of them have dialogue, some don't. I like it because it can kind of slow down the attention span a bit. It's a way to draw you in to the rest of the record. — Conor Oberst

If you love something, give it away. — Conor Oberst

No lies, just love. — Conor Oberst

I like the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park. I love how it's been rained on forever and looks worn down by time. — Conor Oberst

The world's become a little too mean. — Conor Oberst

It's exploding bags, aerosol cans Southbound buses, Peter Pan They left it up to us again I thought you knew the drill It's kill or be killed. — Conor Oberst

I used to do community theater with Conor Oberst. — Andrew Rannells

I've been part of running a label since I was a kid, so I understand how it works. But the more and more I learn about it, the less and less interested I am in it. — Conor Oberst

Love's an excuse to get hurt. — Conor Oberst

My family is Catholic. I went to a Catholic school, that kind of thing, so that was my childhood for sure. — Conor Oberst

We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul. — Conor Oberst

You can only really understand good if you have bad, so the idea of heaven or anything that happens for eternity, even if it's nice, I can't imagine it being nice forever. Even the idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it's kind of a nice thing to say, you know. — Conor Oberst

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself. — Conor Oberst

There was this book I read and loved, The story of a ship Who sailed around the world and found That nothing else exists Beyond its own two sails And wooden shell And what is held within. All else is sure to pass. We clutch and grasp And debate what's truly permanent. — Conor Oberst

There's a small amount of super-wealthy people that want to maintain their billions and billions of dollars. Those are the people who are really making the decisions. — Conor Oberst

My feeling is that I think writers in general tend to be self-conscious and it takes a bit of a leap of faith or just not giving a sh-t to write something you know people are going to criticize. — Conor Oberst

We might die from medication but we sure killed all the pain — Conor Oberst

I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health. I said, 'There's nothing that I can do for you that you can't do for yourself.' He said, 'Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that that would help.' So I sat with him a while then I asked him how he felt. He said, 'I think I'm cured.' — Conor Oberst

I used to work at a school as a teacher's assistant, and my mom is a principal at an elementary school. I don't know, I think that's a pretty good life, teaching kids. — Conor Oberst

I want to be enriched by the music I listen to. That's the reason it never really exists in the mainstream. Because that's not what most people are after. — Conor Oberst

The first music I ever got into was the '80s alternative bands that my brother listened to, like The Cure and The Smiths and R.E.M. and Fugazi. I can remember specifically saying The Cure was my favorite band back in second grade. — Conor Oberst

You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault. — Conor Oberst

Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music. — Conor Oberst

Our band is different in the sense that we all are involved with a lot of different projects. It's hard to say when we'll record again, but we're not calling it quits right away. — Conor Oberst

I think that hip-hop is more of an individual effort. That means you're an artist from the streets, they expect you to rap about the streets, because that's what happens there. — Conor Oberst

I think that, with anything creative, you should have the freedom to experiment, and that experimentation means not feeling totally responsible for how other people perceive it. — Conor Oberst

I always embrace the worst-case scenario. — Conor Oberst

A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike. — Conor Oberst

Little soldier, little insect You know war it has no heart It will kill you in the sunshine Or happily in the the dark Where kindness is a card game Or a bent up cigarette In the trenches, in the hard rain With a bullet and a bet. — Conor Oberst

If there's a criticism of 'Cassadaga' that I agreed with, it's that we left things in the oven too long, that songs were overstuffed, with too many ideas competing for space. — Conor Oberst

Because the truth is that gossip is as good as gospel in this town. You can save face but you won't ever save your soul. And that's a fact. — Conor Oberst

I enjoy recording and performing, but it's the songwriting that I love most. — Conor Oberst

With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we're never going to know what the full picture is. — Conor Oberst

I didn't used to think about politics much, or social issues. I was a teenager, writing about girls. — Conor Oberst

I really just want to be warm yellow light that pours over everyone I love. — Conor Oberst

I would prefer to be a little nervous, because when you stop being nervous is kind of when you stop caring. — Conor Oberst

It's glorious to be able to go onto the Internet and hear any kind of music anywhere, from anywhere, and get it instantly. But there's also something glorious about having a record with a sleeve and looking at the artwork, putting it on the turntable and playing it, there's still something romantic to me about that. — Conor Oberst

And your eyes must do some raining if you're ever gonna grow / When crying don't help, you can't compose yourself / It's best to compose a poem, an honest verse of longing / Or a simple song of hope. — Conor Oberst

It's human nature to wonder. — Conor Oberst

And me I'm in the bathroom crying out my eyelids because it's hard to be a man when you're scared, just like a little kid. — Conor Oberst

My favorite rhymes are sort of half-rhymes where you might just get the vowel sound the same, but it's not really a true rhyme. That gives you far more flexibility to capture the feeling you're trying to express. But sometimes it's best not to have any rhyme. — Conor Oberst

Every time I finish a song ... most of the time it's in my own head, like this sounds too much like a Townes Van Zandt song, or whoever. I realize there are so many melodies and chord progressions in pop and rock music that are so similar that you can kind of trace it back to other things. Most of the time it's just in your head. — Conor Oberst

I keep drinking the ink from my pen and i'm balancing history books up on my head but it all boils down to one quotable phrase if you love something give it away — Conor Oberst

You can do a lot to shape the feeling of a song by the way you record it. — Conor Oberst

I have on many occasions spoken my mind from stage. I have offered organizations table space by the merch booth. I have donated a dollar-a-ticket, or the entire guarantee, to different causes. I have registered voters. I have played on behalf of political candidates. — Conor Oberst

I went right from wunderkind to washed up. Old. Been around too long. That's just the way I feel. That's my internal dialogue. — Conor Oberst

It seems like everything I do musically I tend to lose a few fans and gain a few fans, and it all kind of evens out. — Conor Oberst

Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object. — Conor Oberst

Screaming is bad for the voice, but it's good for the heart. — Conor Oberst

When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I'm a little bit more of a realist now. I think there's a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it's more about choosing your battles. — Conor Oberst

To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic. — Conor Oberst

It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much. — Conor Oberst

There's a lot of optimism in changing scenery, in seeing what's down the road. — Conor Oberst

We [ the Desaparecidos ] are perfectly prepared for people to hate what we're saying or not like what we're saying. — Conor Oberst

I like science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Vonnegut, and I really like Margaret Atwood, 'The Handmaid's Tale.' And you know, so much of science fiction has to do with predicting what's to come, so I think that's really interesting. — Conor Oberst

My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose. — Conor Oberst

We made love on the living room floor with the noise in the background of a televised war and in that defeaning pleasure i thought i heard someone say if we walk away they'll walk away — Conor Oberst

Why are you scared to dream of god when it's salvation that you want? — Conor Oberst

And I sing and sing of awful things The pleasure that my sadness brings. — Conor Oberst

Rock and roll seems to have had a mellowing in the business where it got harder to sell individual records and make money doing that. — Conor Oberst

I find that moving keeps me optimistic, the idea of what's going to be down the road a bit or around the next bend. — Conor Oberst

I need some meaning I can memorize. The kind I have always seems to slip my mind. — Conor Oberst

They say it's better to bury your sadness in a graveyard or garden that waits for the spring to wake from its sleep and burst into green. — Conor Oberst

It's always the negative things that seep through into your consciousness. Most of the positive things just roll off real fast. I just try not to pay attention to it, because I've never read anything about my band that's accurate. — Conor Oberst

The drunk kids, the catholics They're all about the same They're waiting for something Hoping to be saved — Conor Oberst

Everything must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here. — Conor Oberst

I don't really premeditate what I write my songs about; you know, they just kind of happen, and I can't start writing songs to please a certain group of people or propagate a certain message all the time. That's just not how my songwriting works - it just sort of comes out, and the songs are what they are. — Conor Oberst

I'd rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Besides, maybe this time it's different, I mean, I really think you like me. — Conor Oberst

Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does. — Conor Oberst

I'm very interested in writing - it just takes so much discipline, whether it's short stories or novels. — Conor Oberst

The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qur'an is mute; if you burned them all together you'd get close to the truth. — Conor Oberst

If you think about the concept of reincarnation, it's essentially uploading yourself and your spirit into a new form, a new hard drive as it were. — Conor Oberst

I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories — Conor Oberst

Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers and laid entwined together on a bed of clover and left there to sleep, left there to dream of their happiness. — Conor Oberst

I read the newspaper online. Mostly 'The New York Times.' I'll still buy papers if I'm getting on an airplane or the tour bus, though. I like physical things. — Conor Oberst

I think it is more like a ghost that has been following us both. Something vague that we're not seeing, something more like a feeling. — Conor Oberst

If you think about Protestant and Catholic or Shiite and Sunni, they are basically the same thing ... one eats with their left hand, the other eats with their right hand. — Conor Oberst

When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do. — Conor Oberst