Conor Oberst Quotes

102 Sourced Quotes

Now I'm hunched over a typewriter
I guess you call that paintin' in a cave
And there's a word I can't remember
and a feeling I cannot escape

Conor Oberst
So I go back and forth forever
All my thoughts they come in pairs
Oh I will, I won't, I doubt, I don't,
I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared

Conor Oberst
He once cut one of my nightmares out of paper.
I thought it was beautiful, I put it on a record cover.

Conor Oberst
It's exploding bags, aerosol cans
Southbound buses, Peter Pan
They left it up to us again
I thought you knew the drill
It's kill or be killed.

Conor Oberst
There was this book I read and loved,
The story of a ship
Who sailed around the world and found
That nothing else exists
Beyond its own two sails
And wooden shell
And what is held within.
All else is sure to pass.
We clutch and grasp
And debate what's truly permanent.

Conor Oberst
If you wanna see the future,
Go stare into a cloud.

Conor Oberst
And me I'm in my bedroom drawing in my notebook
Because my hand thinks I'm an artist
But my heart knows I'm a poet
It's just words they mean so little to me.

Conor Oberst
I started to sink like the moon tends to do if you stare at it too long
Then you blink and it's gone
I guess time has a way of making everything alright
it's just there is not enough of it
and so we drink and we sing and we celebrate
this lie and hope that it will last
morning is here night has passed
A celebration upon completion

Conor Oberst
I hear if you make friends with Jesus Christ, you will get right up from that chalk outline. And then you'll get dolled up, and you'll dress in white all to take your place in his chorus line. And then in you'll come with those marching drums in a saintly compromise. No more whiskey slurs, no more blonde-haired girls for your whole eternal life. And you'll do the dance that was choreographed at the very dawn of time. Singing "I told you son, the day would come you would die, you'd die you'd die you'd die you'd die".

Conor Oberst
I swear that I'm dying
slowly but it's happening,
and if the perfect spring is waiting somewhere...
just take me there.

Conor Oberst
I find that life is easier when it is just a blur
With no details to confuse who or what or where I was
So when the ending comes the full regret will be obscure

Conor Oberst
'Cause a costume can be comfortable
It can make you feel more beautiful
It can even make you look like someone else
But it's still you, so there's nothing you can do
Like a bad habit, the one you couldn't kick, there it always is
And it's nothing that no doctor's gonna fix.

Conor Oberst
I want to be the surgeon who cuts you open
Who fixes all of life's mistakes
I want to be the house that you were raised in
The only place where you feel safe.

Conor Oberst
For a sunrise or a sunset, you're manic or you're depressed.
Will you ever feel ok?

Conor Oberst
My Brother went to college
To become a doctor
And if he studies hard enough
He'll end up just like papa, who hates his life.

Conor Oberst
Little soldier, little insect
You know war it has no heart
It will kill you in the sunshine
Or happily in the the dark
Where kindness is a card game
Or a bent up cigarette
In the trenches, in the hard rain
With a bullet and a bet.

Conor Oberst
You'll be free child once you have died
from the shackles of language and measurable time

Conor Oberst
But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility?
It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody!
How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery,
To love, and to be loved!
Let's just hope that is enough.

Conor Oberst
A good woman will pick you apart
a box full of suggestions for your possible heart
and you may be offended. and you may be afraid
but don't walk away, don't walk away

Conor Oberst
It's not a movie,
no private screening
This method acting,
well, I call that living

Conor Oberst
I tried to pass for nothing
But my dreams gave me away

Conor Oberst
Well, I could have been a famous singer
If I had someone else's voice
But failure's always sounded better
Let's fuck it up, boys, make some noise!

Conor Oberst
Soon all the joy that pours from everything makes fountains of your eyes
because you finally understand the movement of a hand waving good-bye.

Conor Oberst
So you say there are spaces, opening wide?
Oh believe me, there's day longer than nights.
And you could be happy, if only you'd try.
But you don't try. No you don't try.

Conor Oberst
So don't be fooled, so don't get lied to
Love was always cruel
And don't act strange, don't be a stranger
It happened to me, now it's happening to you
But if you'd take that train underwater
Then we could talk it through

Conor Oberst
It is clear to see that it is not them but me, who had lost my self-identity. As I hide behind these books I read, while scribbling my poetry, like art could save a wretch like me, with some ideal ideology that no one can hope to achieve. And I am never real; it is just a sketch of me. And everything I have made is trite and cheap and a waste of paint, of tape, of time

Conor Oberst
You combed your hair inside that mirror
The one you painted blue and glued with jewelry tears
Something about those bright colors
Would always make you feel better.
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Conor Oberst
My head's a carousel of pictures and
The spinning never stops.

Conor Oberst
So I wait for the day
when I'll hear the key
as it turns in the lock
And the guard will say to me,
"Oh my patient prisoner
you waited for this day and finally,
you are free!
You are free!
You are free!"

Conor Oberst
And I never thought this life was possible, You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for.

Conor Oberst