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
When I run into a person or a kid that comes up and gives me the spiel about, ‘Hey, I got your record at this time in my life, and it really helped me,’ that stuff totally still rings true. If you’re standing there talking to someone, it’s really easy to tell if they’re being authentic or not. And that’s great. – Conor Oberst
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
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
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
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
I would prefer to be a little nervous, because when you stop being nervous is kind of when you stop caring. – Conor Oberst
I’ve always been slightly preoccupied with death or whatever those kind of silly big questions people will tell you to not spend your time worrying about. – 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
I have a terrible memory in general, but one thing I’ve always been able to remember is my songs. – Conor Oberst
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
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. – Conor Oberst
When you look at what people consider success in the music industry, it’s just terrible music. – 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
In theory, I always think I should totally go back to school, because I don’t want to start sinking slowly… I want to learn, blah blah blah. Then I think about actually going and sitting in classes and, man, it sounds terrible. – Conor Oberst
I think we should be pushing for amnesty and a path to citizenship for every undocumented person residing in the United States who has not committed a violent crime, with a special emphasis on keeping families together. – 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
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. – 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
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 have a car in Nebraska. When I bought it, they gave me a satellite radio, and there’s an ‘indie-rock’ station. It’s just nothing I’m interested in. – 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
Life is always surprising to me. When you think it’s going to get dull, it never really does. – Conor Oberst
