We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
A good piece of fiction, in my view, does not offer solutions. Good stories deal with our moral struggles, our uncertainties, our… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
I cannot remember much, I cannot feel much. Maybe erasure is necessary. Maybe the human spirit defends itself as the body does,… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
Together we understood what terror was: you're not human anymore. You're a shadow. You slip out of your own skin, like molting,… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
It's not just the embarrassment of tears. That's part of it, no doubt, but what embarrasses me much more, and always will,… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“Yes, the issue was courage. It always had been, even as a kid. Things scared him. He couldn't help it. Noise scared him, dark… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
Fiction, maybe art in general, is a tentative, uncertain enterprise; it's not science, it's an exploration, but you never find much in the way… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“I learned that words make a difference. It's easier to cope with a kicked bucked than a corpse; if it isn't human, it doesn't… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.” — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“The story' Sanders would say "the whole tone, man, you're wrecking it." Tone?' The sound. You need to get a consitent sound, like slow… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“On occasions the war was like a Ping-Pong ball. You could put fancy spin on it, you could make it dance.” — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“They were afraid of dying, but they were even more afraid to show it.” — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“He thought about the difference between good times and bad times, and how funny it was that he could not state the difference, only… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
