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" 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. "

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" 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

Sitting

School

Man

" When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I'm a little bit more of a realist now. I think there's a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it's more about choosing your battles. "

" Movement has been one of the few constants in my life, and I always feel a great sense of optimism when I set off to a new place. "

" I have a lot of friends that take that position of extreme cynicism, and I just can't let myself go to that place. It's just too easy, and it's just too defeatist. "

" 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. "

" When you look at what people consider success in the music industry, it's just terrible music. "

" I think there's a danger, for me at least, in retreating and going inward and depression. I have to stay diligent against that tendency. "

" 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. "

" I kind of go in waves with reading. Sometimes I read all the time, and sometimes I can't get settled enough to focus. "

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

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

" If you think about Protestant and Catholic or Shiite and Sunni, they are basically the same thing... one eats with their left hand, the other eats with their right hand. "

" One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly. "

" It's very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason... But that's what's great about music - however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them. "

" With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we're never going to know what the full picture is. "

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

" I try to make all my songs good. I don't ever write one to finish one. A lot of protest songs end up that way, driven by some kind of emotional response. "

" Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does. "

" Love's an excuse to get hurt. "

" Screaming is bad for the voice, but it's good for the heart. "

" The way my life's structured, I don't stay in a place for more than a couple months. "

Conor Oberst

Place

Months

" I prefer career artists that have spent time honing their craft, as opposed to, 'I won a karaoke contest on a reality show and now I have a record.' That's such a drag. The music that comes out of it is so poor. "

" I think that, with anything creative, you should have the freedom to experiment, and that experimentation means not feeling totally responsible for how other people perceive it. "

" Pronouns really don't matter in a song - 'I' or 'he' or 'she' or even subscribing a lyric to an inanimate object. "

Conor Oberst

Song

She

" 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'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. "

" 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. "

" When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me. "

Conor Oberst

Writing

Try

" 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. "

" 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. "