Tim O'Brien Quotes

A collection of quotes by Tim O'Brien.

Tim O'Brien is an acclaimed American author, best known for his works in Vietnam War literature. Born on October 1, 1946, in Austin, Minnesota, O'Brien served in the U.S. Army during the war and drew heavily on his experiences to write his most influential book, "The Things They Carried" (1990). This collection of linked short stories explores the physical and emotional burdens carried by soldiers in Vietnam. O'Brien has received numerous literary accolades, including the National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His work continues to resonate with readers worldwide, offering deep insights into the complexities of war and human experiences.

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. .. The pictures get jumbled, you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth wh

That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.

Truth Fiction On Fiction Writing Stories

It was a flight, a kind of fleeing, a kind of falling, falli

It was a flight, a kind of fleeing, a kind of falling, falling higher and higher, spinning off the edge of the earth and beyond the sun and through the vast silent vacuum where there were no burdens and where everything weighed exactly nothing.

Life Freedom Happiness Love Author Inspirational Happy Inspiration Living Book Flying Falling Fly

I survived, but it's not a happy ending.

I survived, but it's not a happy ending.

Life Survival Happy Ending

A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not

A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.

Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I wou

Right then, with the shore so close, I understood that I would not do what I should do. I would not swim away from my hometown and my country and my life. I would not be brave.

Life Rights Countrylife Hometown

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl nam

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, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rusack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending.

War Love Letters

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

Truth Fiction On Fiction Writing Lies