Gavin O'Connor Quotes

Sometimes I do feel like I write the same story again and again. And for me, I am always looking for a place with a kind of redemption.

The artist sees the tragic to such a degree that he is compelled to express the non-tragic.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

Americans like optimism, and 'Once' walks a tightrope: you feel uplifted at the end even if you're crying.

Part of the power of all storytelling is reassurance, offering hope to those sat in the darkness, that good can succeed and wrongdoing fail.

I have been drawn to stories that are attempting to turn suffering into beauty.

I think that's a responsibility I have, to not leave the listener with complete dread or depressing, dark thoughts, but to leave a little door open so that you can dance your way out if you want to.

A lot of 'Blackheart' was me, literally in a dark room, confessing my sins; Poe was the influence for that album. But that melancholy has a hopefulness - in every Poe story, there is always a moral at the end.

I think there is optimism to what I write.

I feel like it's my responsibility not to leave the listener in a pool of dread.

I don't write stories about despair. I write stories about hope.

I didn't want to write a sad song to remind me of the fact that I'm always moving around. I wanted something to cheer me up.

I've always felt in my own small, little way that if I could just write a story where it works out well, where the scales of justice are balanced, then that's something that I do really love to see in the world.

In every story I've written with Batman, there's an element of justice - you never want to have the story end on a defeatist or a cynical note.

Particularly with the blues, it's not just about bad times. It's about the healing spirit.

Life is supposed to be about love and good times, and so I've forgiven myself after paying the consequences of my bad decisions, and I'm ready to move forward and allow my life to be a light to others that it's never over, even for a person like me, who has lost a tremendous amount of respect among my peers, my fans, my friends and family.

Our better angels get clouded and we're more selfish than we should be, more anxious or neurotic or desperate or self-sabotaging. Crueler, even. But I do think there's hope for everyone... I think redemption is possible for anybody.

What makes Batman and what makes other superheroes work is the myth that when life is at its lowest, and when you need a hero, a hero swings down and helps you.

I realised that music controls me more than I control music. I had to write songs that were convincing me that things would get better.

It is just satisfying to think that, somehow, my music and my story could touch someone and make them want to make their own life better.

With 'Guzaarish' I went through a catharsis.

That's the good thing about music: you can sing about people's lives in its stages and feelings. Some songs can put something in context that you couldn't. They can free your mind or can make you think or can be redeeming.

I think there's strength in seeing somebody who's not necessarily winning at life... to make something that makes people feel like they've won when they hear it.

It's a beacon of hope in a dark world. You watch 'The Muppets' and you're smiling for an hour and a half, and then you go outside, and the economy is in crisis.

I feel like music is, you know, made to inspire, to heal, and to cope with. So, I hope that when my fans, or even just people who stumble across my music, I hope they get some type of feeling from it.