"They did not submit to the obvious alternative,……" — Tim O'Brien
"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 the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards."
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Tim O'Brien
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87 Quotes by Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien has 87 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living…
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But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to…
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That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.
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It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is…
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A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.
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All that peace, man, if felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back.
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Fiction is the lie that helps us understand the truth.
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you can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care…
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The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream…
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Everything was such a damned nice idea when it was an idea.
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I guess we're really brothers, aren't we? Don't know what that means, except it means that some of the same…
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Together we understood what terror was: you're not human anymore. You're a shadow. You slip out of your own skin,…
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More Alternative Quotes
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You got to be just stupid to not be focused on alternative energy.
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You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good…
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Education must, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and…
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Ageing's alright, better than the alternative, which is not being here.
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The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative.
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Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.
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In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best…
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