Conor Oberst Quotes

I find that life is easier when it is just a blur With no details to confuse who or what or where I was So when the ending comes the full regret will be obscure

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.

It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living

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

I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories

I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.

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.

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.'

Love's an excuse to get hurt.

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.

So when your new eyes meet mine they won't see no lies, just love.

I try not to think about the idea of reaching more and more people, because once you get in that mindset, I think you lose the point of why you're doing it in the first place. Still, 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.

In a coma, you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you.

And in the morning when the sun rise.

Look in the water, see the blue sky. As if heaven has been laid there at our feet.

I understand why people get desensitized and roll their eyes when they hear a protest song, or even a politician making some flowery speech. It doesn't really change anything.

Cause I swear that I'm dying, slowly but its happening.

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

Hip-hop music has done a very good job of maintaining the political context, where they stand and not giving a sh-t what people think.

If you love something, give it away...

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

Well morning came, and it dressed the sky in a lovely yellow gown.

Shopping malls are opening in that narrow hallway of downtown, filled with people who are shopping for their lovers and their friends, singing "I won't ever be lonely again

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.

The idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because its kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing.

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

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.

As long as I can buy records and books and maybe some clothes, I'm pretty stoked. I don't need a yacht or anything.

I think that obviously the quest for purpose, or meaning, or understanding to existence is something that I always think about, always deal with. I guess everybody does - that existential crisis of human condition. It's nothing new. But I'd love to come across something that really made me believe in something.

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

If I loved you, well that's my fault

And I never thought this life was possible,You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for. In polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in a drawer? Well, I don't think that I ever loved you more Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep And all their tearful words will turn back into steam The sound of loneliness makes me happier.

I love story songs. It's just, for me, they're harder to write, and sometimes they sound too intended or something.

You could be happy, the minute you try. Why won't you try? Oh won't you try?

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.

I think our music is more about seeing ourselves in each other and trying to find a more humanistic viewpoint for the world.

People resist change; if they like something, then they want you to keep doing it over and over - but I think if you like what a particular band or artist does, then you should want to see what they're going to do next.

My Brother went to college To become a doctor And if he studies hard enough He'll end up just like papa, who hates his life.

I swear that I'm dying slowly but it's happening, and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere... just take me there.

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.

You should never be embarrassed by your trouble with living, because it's the ones with the sorest throats who have done the most singing.

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.

I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long Then you blink and it's gone.

I don't see any harm in letting whatever comes out come out of you, even if it's sort of weird, or dark, or painful, or too embarrassing, or whatever. I feel like you might as well get it down for yourself. It can't do anything but help you get to where you want to be by recognizing the thoughts that you're having.

I mean, you just go down the line, and with any of these issues, it's about rich people staying rich. And using poverty as a weapon against people. That's what we see every day. And I'm not an economist, so I can't speak to the nuances of it, but just common sense tells me the whole thing is corrupt.

A kid that picks up a record, he doesn't need to know anything other than the music and have it in his or her headphones. They're getting ideas directly, it's like someone whispering in their ear. That's such a personal way to receive information.

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.

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.

The sound of loneliness makes me happier.

Popular music is all about traveling at the speed of you and elevating the individual as the highest thing in the world.

Music becomes very personal. When you marry a message you want to send out into the world with good music, all of a sudden you have a very potent way of delivering your message.