Everyone acts stupid at some time in order to be loved. Tim O'Brien More Quotes by Tim O'Brien More Quotes From Tim O'Brien What happened, and what might have happened? Tim O'Brien happenedmight A true war story is never moral. Tim O'Brien war-storiesstorieswar A giddy feeling, in a way, except there was the dreamy edge of impossibility to it - like running a dead-end maze - no way out - it couldn't come to a happy conclusion and yet I was doing it anyway because it was all I could think of to do. Tim O'Brien runninglifethinking 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. Tim O'Brien warbelievelying In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. Tim O'Brien difficultstorieswar Did I choose this life of illusion? Don't be mad. My bed was made, I just lied in it. Tim O'Brien illusionmadbed The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human. Tim O'Brien struggleheartcharacter The bad stuff never stops happening: it lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over. Tim O'Brien bad-stuffdimensionsstuff 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 gravity. Tim O'Brien atmospheredecaysky Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories. Tim O'Brien feetwarthinking ... 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. Tim O'Brien numbnesskissingeye 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. Tim O'Brien writingtryinghands 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. Tim O'Brien wayfictionart Life is never all one thing. It bounces around. Certainly, my own life has. Tim O'Brien my-own-lifebouncelife-is All that peace, man, if felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back. Tim O'Brien hurtwantmen It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing. Tim O'Brien hardimportantwriting Inside I feel much like a 12-year-old or a 17-year-old who knows big words. Tim O'Brien bigsfeelsyears I live in my head all day long and the world is a little dreamy. Tim O'Brien littleslongworld In the attic, a warhead no doubt burns. Everything is combustible. Faith burns. Trust burns. Everything burns to nothing and even nothing burns. . . . And when there is nothing, there is nothing worth dying for and when there is nothing worth dying for, there is only nothing. Tim O'Brien dyingdoubtlove 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. Tim O'Brien readinglongbook
