“the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened, and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that… — 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
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
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
“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
“Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.” — Tim O'Brien Copy Share
“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
“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
“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
“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
A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share
My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share
With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share
