Tim O'Brien
![Tim O'Brien](/assets/img/authors/tim-obrien.jpg)
Tim O'Brien
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth1 October 1946
CountryUnited States of America
concise felt nixon tempted
Working as a journalist, I was always tempted to lie. I felt I could do dialogue better than the person I was interviewing. I felt I could lie better than Nixon and be more concise than some random person I was covering.
happen imagine looking others people talking themselves
The people in 'July, July' do find themselves looking backward, talking to others and to themselves about those over-the-cliff, fork-in-the-road moments in their lives. I imagine this is what must happen at a 30th college reunion.
congress displace evidence intended medical primary states
There is no evidence Congress ... intended to displace the states as the primary regulators of the medical profession.
dimensions stuff bad-stuff
The bad stuff never stops happening: it lives in its own dimension, replaying itself over and over.
undead
Once someone's dead you can't make them undead.
imagination killers
Imagination is a killer.
brave important distinction
He wished he could've explained some of this. How he had been braver than he ever thought possible, but how he had not been so brave as he wanted to be. The distinction was important.
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.
nice ideas hindsight
Everything was such a damned nice idea when it was an idea.
weight substance gravity
Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity.
time yesterday
A lot like yesterday, a lot like never.
courage forward life suffer
I know what it is to feel unloved, to want revenge, to make mistakes, to suffer disappointment, yet also to find the courage to go forward in life.
carry fellow ghosts memories people vietnam
I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam - the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers.
decades remained returned rightly
I returned to Vietnam in '94, and even then, all those decades later, walking around that place, I remained afraid. And, in some ways, rightly so.