“Yes, the issue was courage. It always had been, even as a kid. Things scared him. He couldn't help it. Noise scared… — Tim O'Brien Courage Copy Share Image
It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing. — Tim O'Brien About 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… — Tim O'Brien Dream 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… — Tim O'Brien Answers 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,… — 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 Memory 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,… — 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 Ping pong Copy Share Image
“They were afraid of dying, but they were even more afraid to show it.” — Tim O'Brien Death 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… — Tim O'Brien Books 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… — Tim O'Brien Bad time Copy Share Image
A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written. — Tim O'Brien Fiction Copy Share Image
My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and… — Tim O'Brien Alive Copy Share Image
With a hangover and with fear, it is difficult to put a helmet on your head. — Tim O'Brien Difficult Copy Share Image
“Peace never bragged. If you didn't look for it, it wasn't there.” — Tim O'Brien Peace Copy Share Image
“Money was never a problem, passports were never required. There were always new places to dance.” — Tim O'Brien Money Copy Share Image
“Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first… — Tim O'Brien Dreams Copy Share Image
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 Daydreaming Copy Share Image
“When your afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.” — Tim O'Brien Fear Copy Share Image
He had an opinion of himself, I think, that was too high for his own good. Or maybe it was the reverse.… — Tim O'Brien Erase Copy Share Image
“I would wish this book could take the form of a plea for everlasting peace, a plea from one who knows... Or… — Tim O'Brien Books Copy Share Image
“All of us, I suppose, like to believe that in a moral emergency we will behave like the heroes of our youth,… — Tim O'Brien Character Copy Share Image
That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth. — Tim O'Brien Fiction Copy Share Image
