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" People resist change; if they like something, then they want you to keep doing it over and over - but I think if you like what a particular band or artist does, then you should want to see what they're going to do next. "

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" 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. "

Conor Oberst

Bus

Airplane

Newspaper

" To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic. "

" My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose. "

" 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. "

" I was raised Catholic, and I have an aversion to anyone who takes religion to the extreme. "

" 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. "

" I'll never understand how destroying families through deportation benefits our society. How we treat the undocumented says a great deal about us as a people and whether or not we'll continue to fulfill the fundamental American promise of equality and opportunity for all. "

" I enjoy recording and performing, but it's the songwriting that I love most. "

" 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. "

" 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

Feeling

Best

" I like ideas, but I don't like being preached to. "

Conor Oberst

Ideas

Being

" Art is essentially communication. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. That's why people make art, so other people can relate to it. "

" 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. "

" A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike. "

" 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. "

" I really just want to be warm yellow light that pours over everyone I love. "

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

" When you're 16 or 17, I think like most people that age, the first time you experience certain things in life, whether it's heartbreak or death or love, obviously it's going to seem like a much bigger deal. "

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

" 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

" 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. "

" I didn't used to think about politics much, or social issues. I was a teenager, writing about girls. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If there's a criticism of 'Cassadaga' that I agreed with, it's that we left things in the oven too long, that songs were overstuffed, with too many ideas competing for space. "

" 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. "

" 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. "