“You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.” — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“In the next days it took little provocation for us to flick the flint of our Zippo lighters. Thatched roofs take the… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“I remember Mitchell Sanders sitting quietly in the shade of an old banyan tree. He was using a thumbnail to pry off… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“There should be a law, I though. If you support a war, if you think it's worth the price, that's fine, but… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“I suppose if we gain anything from this unsought experience it will be an appreciation for honesty- frankness on the part of… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
I'll picture Rat Kiley face, his grief, and I'll think, You dumb cooze. Because she wasn't listening. It wasn't a war story.… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“A few names were known in full, some in part, some not at all. No one cared. Except in clearly unreasonable cases,… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“The days seemed to stretch out toward infinity, blank and humid, without purpose, and at night I was kept awake by the… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“You learn, finally, that you'll die, and so you try to hang on to your own life, that gentle, naive kid you… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war… — 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
