1.
My head's a carousel of pictures and The spinning never stops.
Conor Oberst
My brain is a revolving gallery of images and the rotation is perpetual.
2.
I really just want to be warm yellow light that pours over everyone I love.
Conor Oberst
I aspire to be a benevolent radiance that bathes my beloveds in warmth.
3.
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
Conor Oberst
4.
I think there's so much about Rasta culture that's interesting. Just the idea of preaching one-ness, that we're all in this together.
Conor Oberst
5.
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
6.
It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living
Conor Oberst
7.
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
Conor Oberst
8.
There's a major underlying idea as you grow up that you need to just save your money and get that affordable housing at the edge of town where you're away from the city where all the crime happens or whatever.
Conor Oberst
9.
I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories
Conor Oberst
10.
I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone.
Conor Oberst
11.
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.
Conor Oberst
12.
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
13.
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.
Conor Oberst
14.
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
15.
I've cried, and you'd think I'd be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.
Conor Oberst
16.
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
17.
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
18.
Love's an excuse to get hurt.
Conor Oberst
19.
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
20.
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
21.
In a coma, you don't dream, you just hope that someone sits with you.
Conor Oberst
22.
So when your new eyes meet mine they won't see no lies, just love.
Conor Oberst
23.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all-time favorite writers. I feel spiritual when reading his words, even though they're translated. I wish desperately that I could read it in its original language. I already feel like I'm going to church when I read him; imagine if I could read it in the original.
Conor Oberst
24.
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.
Conor Oberst
25.
The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. 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.
Conor Oberst
26.
I have many friends who are both Mexican and Mexican-American and others who, I guess you would say, are somewhere in between. The ironic thing is that all three of those categories often exist inside of the same family.
Conor Oberst
27.
Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object.
Conor Oberst
28.
We've all seen the power music has to spread messages of solidarity and hope.
Conor Oberst
29.
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.
Conor Oberst
30.
You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.
Conor Oberst
31.
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
32.
I've never conceptualized much of what I write about. Maybe, once I'm onto something, I'll conceptualize a finished record. I want the songs to tie together and make sense together. I'm not like, "Oh, I want to explore this idea." That's just not how the creative process works for me. It's more like something strikes me, or finds me, and then I wrestle with it after that. I don't sit back in my armchair, like, "What kind of philosophy can I explore today?"
Conor Oberst
33.
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.
Conor Oberst
34.
When everything is lonely I can be my best friend.
Conor Oberst
35.
We might die from medication but we sure killed all the pain
Conor Oberst
36.
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.
Conor Oberst
37.
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
38.
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
39.
One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly.
Conor Oberst
40.
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
41.
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
42.
On good days, I can see the inherent goodness in people, and that human beings have a high capacity to learn and adapt. But things like the environment, nuclear weapons and ideas like peak oil - if you think about them too much, they can really freak you out.
Conor Oberst
43.
They say they don't know when but a day is gonna come. When there won't be a moon and there won't be a sun. It will just go black. It will just go back to the way it was before.
Conor Oberst
44.
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.
Conor Oberst
45.
If you love something, give it away...
Conor Oberst
46.
I definitely think religion is responsible for a lot of the evils of the world. I mean that's not really in debate. But at the same time, I think whatever gets you through the day, whatever helps you make sense of life I'm not gonna begrudge my grandmother with her rosary beads. It works for them. And at the end of the day, I don't claim to know the answer to anything.
Conor Oberst
47.
I do think that music has a special ability to get behind enemy lines and win hearts and minds.
Conor Oberst
48.
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
49.
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.
Conor Oberst
50.
Some days I feel like I'm an atheist. Most days, I feel like an agnostic. On a very rare day, I feel like I'm a believer in something.
Conor Oberst