It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
Writing doesn’t get easier with experience. The more you know, the harder it is to write. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“What stories can do, I guess, is make things present. I can look at things I never looked at. I can attach… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“the act of writing had led me through a swirl of memories that might otherwise have ended in paralysis or worse. By… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It's about sunlight. It's about the special way… — 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
Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life. — 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
