Conor Oberst Quotations | Page 2

To finish a song is the best feeling in the world.

When I would first come to New York on tour, I hated the place.

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.

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

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.

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.

I remember having to quit school and quit my job. I just sort of moved all my stuff into other people's places. Within, like, six months, I was able to earn enough money from touring to rent a place again.

I think there are some songs that stand the test of time better than others for sure. I think some songs go out of favour; I'll get sick of a song for a while, and I won't play it; then it'll make a comeback.

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.

I've given up trying to understand what people think about me. It seems like a lot of people don't like the music we make and don't know me, or something.

In many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio; we build the songs that way.

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.

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.

The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions.

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.

We have a problem with no solution but to love and to be loved.

I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers/ And laid entwined together in a bed of clover/ Left there to sleep/ Left there to dream of happiness.

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

But these are days we dream about, when the sunlight paints us goldAnd this apartment could not be prettier as we danced up there alone

But these are days we dream about, when the sunlight paints us gold And this apartment could not be prettier as we danced up there alone

From that job that makes you sleepback to the thoughts that keep you awake...

From that job that makes you sleep back to the thoughts that keep you awake...

Last few months I've been living with this couple,yeah, you know the kind who buy everything in doubles,I love their love and I am thankful,that someone has actually recieved the prize that was promised,by all those fairy tales that drugged us,but still to me I'm sick lonely, no laurel tree, just green envywill my number come up eventually, like love's some kind of lotterywhere you scratch and see what's underneathIts' sorry, just one cherry, I'll play againget lucky.

Last few months I've been living with this couple, yeah, you know the kind who buy everything in doubles, I love their love and I am thankful, that someone has actually recieved the prize that was promised, by all those fairy tales that drugged us, but still to me I'm sick lonely, no laurel tree, just green envy will my number come up eventually, like love's some kind of lottery where you scratch and see what's underneath Its' sorry, just one cherry, I'll play again get lucky.

I scream, but I still don't know why I do it. The sound never stays; it just swells and decays. So what is the point?

We're all too busy working, entertaining ourselvesforty hours television and prescription pillswell I take two a day to make my brain behaveIt never does but who's to say at least my doctor gets paid.

We're all too busy working, entertaining ourselves forty hours television and prescription pills well I take two a day to make my brain behave It never does but who's to say at least my doctor gets paid.

I'm happy just because I found out I am really no one

If you love something, give it away.

One by one I drowned all the people I’d been.

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.

I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories

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

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

The world's become a little too mean.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Each song [Desaparecidos] has a seed that it came from. We're trying to take that and broaden it out and make it resonate with people.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I think there's a weird self-affirmation thing that happens in popular music in general. It seems like every song I hear on the radio is like, "Listen to me roar!" or "This is my fight song!"

We [Desaparecidos] have to make the message and the music and the packaging as appealing as possible - as Taco Bell as possible: mediocre and no one can be offended by it and everyone can sort of enjoy it and we can play it on the radio.

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

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.

Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do then hurt me.

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

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

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.

I want to be the surgeon who cuts you open Who fixes all of life's mistakes I want to be the house that you were raised in The only place where you feel safe. I wanna be a shower in the morning That wakes you up and makes you clean I know I'm just the weather against your window As you sleep through a winter's dream

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.

Everything that happens is supposed to be And it's all pre-determined, can't change your destiny Guess I'll just keep moving, someday maybe I'll get to where I'm going

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.

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.

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

For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you're depressed. Will you ever feel ok?

We [ Desaparecidos] try to be the opposite of apathetic. There are so many young people in America that are apathetic.

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

I drug your ghost across the country, and we plotted out my death. Every city and memory we whispered "Here is where you rest." Well I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees And I settled for a telephone, sang into your machine: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

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

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.

Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot My twitching muscles tease my flippant thoughts I never really dreamed of heaven much Until we put him in the ground. There is nothing as lucky, as easy, or free

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

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.

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

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.

There's nothing that the road cannot heal

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

And the sad act like lepers They stick to the shadows They long to ring bells of warning To tell of their coming So that the pure can shut their doors.

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.

Maybe there's a different story when it comes to hip-hop or different genres, but as far as rock music goes, I think there is a sort of fear of saying things people might be apt to criticize. Our band is the opposite of that.

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

There is no Hell when you die so don't look so worried

My dad, who plays guitar and piano and was in cover bands, along with my older brother, Matt, taught me guitar and stuff. I started writing acoustic songs and playing by myself in 7th grade.

It's in vogue to have a cause and give money in charity. But to actually speak up and say something like, I'm pissed about this" - that doesn't seem to be very popular unless you're writing a blog or tweeting.

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

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

If I loved you, well that's my fault

I wanna be your happiness. I wanna be your common sense pain.

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.

Cause a costume can be comfortable It can make you feel more beautiful It can even make you look like someone else But it's still you, so there's nothing you can do Like a bad habit, the one you couldn't kick, there it always is And it's nothing that no doctor's gonna fix.

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.

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.

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.

So I wait for the day when I'll hear the key as it turns in the lock And the guard will say to me, "Oh my patient prisoner you waited for this day and finally, you are free! You are free! You are free!

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

For a song I was bought Now I lie when I talk With a careful eye on the cue card. Onto a stage I was pushed, With my sorrow well rehearsed. So give me all your pity and your money, now (all of it).

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.

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.

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.

I think different musical collaborators bring out different qualities in my songs and I like that.

Much of appreciating art or music is really the interpretation of the listener. To a certain extent it's projection - it's what people need or lack in themselves that they then put upon these people that they admire.

I always embrace the worst-case scenario.