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. ”

When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do. ”

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

Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music. ”

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

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. ”

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. ”

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

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. ”

I've cried, and you'd think I'd be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life. ”