All Tim O'Brien Quotes
- They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to… Alternative
- They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and… All
- First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters,… Afternoon
- Writing doesn’t get easier with experience. The more you know, the harder it is to write. Doesn
- It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you… Afraid
- But in a story I can steal her soul. Inspirational
- But this too is true: stories can save us. Inspirational
- I was a coward. I went to the war. Coward
- And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life. Body
- Imagination, like reality, has its limits. Imagination
- Mitchell Sanders was right. For the common soldier, at least, war has the feel-the spiritual texture-of a great ghostly fog, thick and permanent. There is… Ambiguity
- There was the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry. Abiding
- Imagination is a killer. Imagination
- The presence of danger has a way of making you feel fully awake. Awake
- When your afraid,reallyafraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. Afraid
- Why do our politicians put warnings on cigarette packs and not on their own foreheads? Cigarette
- Once you're alive, you can't ever be dead. Alive
- If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth. Care
- They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried… All
- Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain. Acknowledge