Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth1 October 1946
CountryUnited States of America
pain laughter doe
Laughter does not deny pain. Laughter - like a wail - acknowledges and replies to pain.
art fiction answers
Fiction, maybe art in general, is a tentative, uncertain enterprise; it's not science, it's an exploration, but you never find much in the way of answers.
writing hands trying
I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at a piece of nonfiction, a personal memoir of youth, but over the next several weeks, without intending it, the work began evolving into what has become 'Tomcat in Love.
eye kissing numbness
... when he kissed her, she received the kiss without returning it, her eyes wide open, not afraid, not a virgin's eyes, just flat and uninvolved.
war lying believe
If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie.
book reading long
Well, right now I'm not dead. But when I am, it's like...I don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading. [...] An old one. It's up on a library shelf, so you're safe and everything, but the book hasn't been checked out for a long, long time. All you can do is wait. Just hope somebody'll pick it up and start reading.
imagination killers
Imagination is a killer.
want body power-of-stories
And as a writer now, I want to save Linda's life. Not her body--her life.
reality imagination limits
Imagination, like reality, has its limits.
loss abiding certainty
There was the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.
way danger awake
The presence of danger has a way of making you feel fully awake.
world pay saws
When your afraid,reallyafraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.
war coward cowardice
I was a coward. I went to the war.
warning politician cigarette
Why do our politicians put warnings on cigarette packs and not on their own foreheads?