Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth1 October 1946
CountryUnited States of America
husband father love-you
("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.
dream hurt writing
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?
weight substance gravity
Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity.
land water together
...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated.
time yesterday
A lot like yesterday, a lot like never.
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.
bullet depending produce whom
A bullet can kill the enemy, but a bullet can also produce an enemy, depending on whom that bullet strikes.
fantasy hemisphere human imagination imagine power side
Fantasy has a dark side to it. It also has a light hemisphere - the power of the human imagination to keep going, to imagine a better tomorrow.
actual art finally great human inward model mona moves piece
Is the Mona Lisa an 'accurate' representation of the actual human model for the painting? Who knows? Who cares? It's a great piece of art. It moves us. It makes us wonder, makes us gape - finally makes us look inward at ourselves.
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.
characters dedicated form inside labeled war work wrote
'The Things They Carried' is labeled right inside the book as a work of fiction, but I did set out when I wrote the book to make it feel real... I use my own name, and I dedicated the book to characters in the book to give it the form of a war memoir.
fiction truth
Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth.