Conor Oberst Quotes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The only thing major labels can really offer is money.
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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!"
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I kind of go in waves with reading. Sometimes I read all the time, and sometimes I can't get settled enough to focus.
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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.
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We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul.
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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.
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The sound of loneliness makes me happier.
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I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories
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All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, 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. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.
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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.
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I'm kind of like, "never say never."
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One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself.
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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.
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Screaming is bad for the voice, but it's good for the heart.
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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
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When everything is lonely I can be my best friend.
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If you love something, give it away...