“How crazy it was that people who were so incredibly alive could get so incredibly dead” — Tim O'Brien Crazy people Copy Share Image
“Proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life.” — Tim O'Brien Death Copy Share Image
“It was boredom with a twist, the kind of boredom that caused stomach disorders.” — Tim O'Brien Boredom 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
“I’m not dead. But when I am, it’s like . . . I don’t know, I guess it’s like being inside a… — Tim O'Brien Book Copy Share Image
“She'd say amazing things sometimes. "Once you're alive," she'd say, "you cant ever be dead.” — Tim O'Brien Amazing things Copy Share Image
...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated. — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried. — Tim O'Brien Awe 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
“All around me the options seemed to be narrowing, as if I were hurtling down a huge black funnel, the whole world… — Tim O'Brien Whole world Copy Share Image
But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world. — Tim O'Brien Dream Copy Share Image
It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect,… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
A giddy feeling, in a way, except there was the dreamy edge of impossibility to it - like running a dead-end maze… — Tim O'Brien Conclusion 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
you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the… — Tim O'Brien Care Copy Share Image
But I do like churches. The way it feels inside. It feels good when you just sit there, like you're in a… — Tim O'Brien Church 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
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
“when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix… — Tim O'Brien Confidence Copy Share Image
“I detested their blind, thoughtless, automatic acquiescence to it all, their simpleminded patriotism, their prideful ignorance, their love-it-or-leave-it platitudes, how they were… — Tim O'Brien Honesty Copy Share Image
“Still there was so much to say. How the rain never stopped. How the cold worked into your bones. Sometimes the bravest… — Tim O'Brien Courage Copy Share Image
“I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in… — Tim O'Brien Civil war Copy Share Image
“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor… — Tim O'Brien Habits Copy Share Image
“He felt crazy sometimes. Real depravity. Late at night an electric sizzle came into his blood, a tight pumped-up killing rage, and… — Tim O'Brien Rage Copy Share Image
“Anyways, the guys try to be cool. They just lie there and groove, but after a while they start hearing - you… — Tim O'Brien Chamber music Copy Share Image
It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way… — 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
“Money was never a problem, passports were never required. There were always new places to dance.” — Tim O'Brien Dance Copy Share Image
“My whole life seemed to spill out into the river, swirling away from me, everything I had ever been or ever wanted… — Tim O'Brien Life Copy Share Image
There is always the threat of tomorrow's treachery, or next year's treachery, or the treachery implicit in all the tomorrows beyond that. — Tim O'Brien Betrayal Copy Share Image
“And now it is time for a final act of courage. I urge you: March proudly into your own dream.” — Tim O'Brien Courage Copy Share Image
“They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what… — Tim O'Brien Love Copy Share Image
It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do. — Tim O'Brien Men Copy Share Image
They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of… — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
“He wanted to heat up the truth, to make it burn so hot that you would feel exactly what he felt. For… — Tim O'Brien Truth 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 Peace Copy Share Image
“When your afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.” — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
He wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had… — Tim O'Brien Brave Copy Share Image
What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end... — Tim O'Brien Copy Share Image
