Conor Oberst Quotes

I've got a lot of experience under my belt, but I still have a very naive and idealistic outlook on life.

Back when I was an idealistic 18-year-old on my way to Chicago, I might have believed that being on the side of virtue would guarantee a good outcome. These many years later, I know better.

You realize you can't change the world but it shouldn't stop you from trying.

At twenty a man is full of fight and hope. He wants to reform the world. When he is seventy he still wants to reform the world, but he know he can't.

I think now I'm more realistic, but I'm still very much an idealist.

The romantic idealism of my youth has been replaced with realism and hard work at what I love.

I'm very aware that just driving blindly towards money won't get me anything. I drive blindly towards making the world a better place.

I'm less Pollyanna now. That's probably healthy.

Back in those days we thought we could change the world.

I have become a little more cynical and, I would like to believe, a little wiser. When I first came to Mumbai, I was very idealistic. Now I can look anyone in the face and tell a lie. But I'm in a good place.

Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you're younger but now I just think 'well everybody's absolutely mad and I'm doing quite well'.

I'm an idealist without illusions.

Instead of drifting along like a leaf in a river, understand who you are and how you come across to people and what kind of an impact you have on the people around you and the community around you and the world, so that when you go out, you can feel you have made a positive difference.

Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.

My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here.

You can't sing about the same things as you did when you were 20; it would be ridiculous to sing about, I don't know, being in the quad. You can't really write about mortgage payments or stuff like that... but you can talk about 'let's make the world a better place.'

When I was growing up and trying to get my foot on the ladder, I had the self-belief that my mother taught me, and it never occurred to me that anything could go wrong. I've learned life can't be like that.

I get more optimistic as I get older.

When you're young, try to be realistic; as you get older, become idealistic. You'll live longer.

I'm older, I'm matured... I'm looking forward to the years to come. Good years.

My life is better with every year of living it.

I am a mixture of idealist and realist.

I don't think everything is going to get peachy ever. But I think we have to fight for what we believe in.

Growing up with my father's legacy, we never felt that we had to do anything, but we were always raised to think: What could be better than to explore the wonders of the world and share that with people? To try and make the world a better place. And I guess it stuck.

The man is distinguished from the youth by the fact that he takes the world as it is, instead of everywhere fancying it amiss and wanting to improve it, i.e. model it after his ideal; in him the view that one must deal with the world according to his interest, not according to his ideals, becomes confirmed.