Conor Oberst Quotes

'Truth Will Set U Free' is about honesty. My philosophic belief that ultimately being true to yourself is liberating, with every individual's inalienable right to be who they are without fear or recrimination.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

The truth sets you free. It's a very liberating thing, when you say this is who I am warts and all and then you can just get on with life. It's amazing.

I come out of real life.

Being real is what is important.

I'm crap at pretending to be something I'm not when I'm in my real life.

Everyone should just be exactly who they are.

Getting to be authentic is so liberating.

When my divorce came through, it was like being let out of a cage because I hadn't been true to myself before; I was being something that was expected of me.

I'm not a fan of being inauthentic.

I have no secrets. Neither did Tupac, neither does my daughter. We don't live behind secrets, we don't live lies, we are who we are, and we are pretty happy to be who we are.

I'm not too good at being fake or being somebody else.

We crave permission openly to become our secret selves.

I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

I've been lucky enough to reach a place where I can speak what's in my heart, and people know that it comes from a real place; I don't have to worry about doing what someone's not doing - I can do me.

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

Appear as you are, or be as you appear.

I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That's what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there's nothing.

To express yourself as you are, without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, is the most important thing.

You can't try to be authentic. You either are or you aren't.

Let your tongue speak what your heart thinks.

I think we were just coming out and being ourselves, instead of operating within boundaries that other people had created. We decided to do away with those boundaries.

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels.

The whole 'Melrose' series is an attempt to tell the truth, and is based on the idea that there is some salutary or liberating power in telling the truth.