Imagination, like reality, has its limits. Tim O'Brien More Quotes by Tim O'Brien More Quotes From Tim O'Brien It’s a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasn’t felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When you’re afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood- you give it together, you take it together. Tim O'Brien togethergivingblood Everyone acts stupid at some time in order to be loved. Tim O'Brien stupidorder But in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world. Tim O'Brien storiesdreamworld I'm not dead. But when I am, it's likeI don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading. Tim O'Brien readingknowsbook The world shrieks and sinks talons into our hearts. This we call memory. Tim O'Brien heartmemoriesworld Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity. Tim O'Brien gravitysubstanceweight A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. Tim O'Brien truthmaylying Together we understood what terror was: you're not human anymore. You're a shadow. You slip out of your own skin, like molting, shedding your own history and your own future, leaving behind everything you ever were or wanted to believed in. You know you're about to die. And it's not a movie and you aren't a hero and all you can do is whimper and wait. Tim O'Brien leavingherowaiting Even then, at nine years old, I wanted to live inside her body. I wanted to melt into her bones - THAT kind of love. Tim O'Brien bodynineyears Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love...it had all the shadings and complexities of mature adult love and maybe more, because there were not yet words for it, and because it was not yet fixed to comparisons or chronologies or the ways by which adults measure such things...I just loved her. Even then, at nine years old, I wanted to live inside her body. I wanted to melt into her bones -- that kind of love. Tim O'Brien adultsbodyyears But the thing about remembering is that you don't forget. You take your material where you find it, which is in your life, at the intersection of past and present. The memory-traffic feeds into a rotary up on your head, where it goes in circles for a while, then pretty soon imagination flows in and the traffic merges and shoots off down a thousand different streets. As a writer, all you can do is pick a street and go for the ride, putting things down as they come at you. That's the real obsession. All those stories. Tim O'Brien realmemoriespast I'm skimming across the surface of my own history, moving fast, riding the melt beneath the blades, doing loops and spins, and when I take a high leap into the dark and come down thirty years later, I realize it is as Tim trying to save Timmy's life with a story. Tim O'Brien darkyearsmoving ("I love you," someone says, and instantly we begin to wonder - "Well, how much?" - and when the answer comes - "With my whole heart" - we then wonder about the wholeness of a fickle heart.) Our lovers, our husbands, our wives, our fathers, our gods - they are all beyond us. Tim O'Brien husbandlove-youfather Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did? Tim O'Brien hurtdreamwriting It's not just the embarrassment of tears. That's part of it, no doubt, but what embarrasses me much more, and always will, is the paralysis that took my heart. A moral freeze: I couldn't decide, I couldn't act, I couldn't comport myself with even a pretense of modest human dignity. Tim O'Brien tearsdoubtheart What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did? Tim O'Brien hurtdreamthinking Once someone's dead you can't make them undead. Tim O'Brien undead We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by scientific investigation those leaden walls that encase the human spirit, that define it and guard it and hold it forever inaccessible. Tim O'Brien wallwishforever There is always the threat of tomorrow's treachery, or next year's treachery, or the treachery implicit in all the tomorrows beyond that. Tim O'Brien next-yeartomorrowyears Certain blood was being shed for uncertain reasons. Tim O'Brien uncertainreasonblood
