Conor Oberst Quotes

Art is spiritual.

With out art, without communicating, we wouldn't live beyond 30 because we'd be so sad and depressed.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

I think all art - even one as lowly as making jokes about celebrities - is there to make a connection.

That's what's amazing about songwriting: you can write a story that everyone connects to.

I just love what art can do and what it means for us; that it can cross barriers. It can speak to us across space and time and culture.

Art is meant to bring people together. It's meant to raise consciousness.

That's what art is about: to create dialogue. Everybody deserves to have their own opinion.

I think there's just a lot of compassion in art. Again, when you're doing something that resonates with somebody else, you're going through an experience another person has had, whether it's been a painful experience or a joyous experience or a happy experience.

Cinema is a medium that can translate ideas.

I could say that making clothes is my way of communicating, because I was always so shy.

Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can't articulate.

Artists don't really want to be marginalized. They believe that everybody should be able to appreciate the experience that an artist gives them, an experience that connects us to each other in a deep way.

People make music to get a reaction. Music is communication.

The goal of art-making in general is communication.

In music, you feel a connection to the voice and think about the person behind it. In art that's secondary.

Music is about communication... it isn't just something that maybe physically sounds good or orally sounds interesting; it's something far, far deeper than that.

Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.

All art to me is an empathetic act. Whoever's telling a story is trying to transfer emotion into someone else.

You have to think about why you're asking an audience to come to the theater. It's not that they should come because it's good for them, because it's the vegetables that they should eat and the culture shot that they should get... It's about experience and building community and catalyzing dialogue and bringing people together.

So for me, it can be theatre or being in L.A. or in some other part of the world, as long as I can explore storytelling and human connection through storytelling, I'm quite content.

Art for me is like breathing.

I think dance in any culture, in any form, is a true leveler.

God comes to us in theater in the way we communicate with each other, whether it be a symphony orchestra, or a wonderful ballet, or a beautiful painting, or a play. It's a way of expressing our humanity.

For me, art is about learning and about living with people. It's alive.