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" 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. "

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" I think there are some songs that stand the test of time better than others for sure. I think some songs go out of favour; I'll get sick of a song for a while, and I won't play it; then it'll make a comeback. "

Conor Oberst

Time

Stand

Song

" 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. "

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

Conor Oberst

Ideas

Being

" 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 find that moving keeps me optimistic, the idea of what's going to be down the road a bit or around the next bend. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" It seems like everything I do musically I tend to lose a few fans and gain a few fans, and it all kind of evens out. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" 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 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. "

" When I started writing songs, I was doing it for myself and a small circle of friends. And gradually, over the years, an audience became involved. "

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

" The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself. "

" 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. "

" I try to keep the idea that there's an audience in as little space in my mind as possible, but you can't erase it entirely, the idea that when you're sitting down to write a song, people are going to hear it. "

" Although Omaha is my birthplace and the place I grew up, I don't see myself spending extended amounts of time there. I feel almost more comfortable and more at peace in New York. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" To finish a song is the best feeling in the world. "

" Joe Arpaio needs no help from me getting attention. For years he has been a beacon of bigotry and intolerance for all the world to see. The list of human and civil-rights abuses he's committed in Maricopa County is long and well documented. "

" So much of listening to lyrically driven music is projecting your own feelings and experiences into the music. "

" No lies, just love. "