Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth1 October 1946
CountryUnited States of America
war lying stories
You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask. Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, 'Is it true?' and if the answer matters, you've got your answer . . . Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.
fiction-stories fiction sufficient
That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.
war mistake views
It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.
truth lying may
A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.
hurt men want
All that peace, man, if felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back.
believe people stories
My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead.
might happened
What happened, and what might have happened?
sleep blood his-love
...his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered.
bears silent terrible
They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of the things they carried.
men very-sad felt
It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.
life happy-endings rainy
I survived, but it's not a happy ending.
war grief thinking
I'll picture Rat Kiley face, his grief, and I'll think, You dumb cooze. Because she wasn't listening. It wasn't a war story. It was a love story.
land water together
...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated.
memories heart world
The world shrieks and sinks talons into our hearts. This we call memory.