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Tim O'Brien Quotes

Powerful Tim O'Brien for Daily Growth

About Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien is an acclaimed American novelist, short story writer, and poet, best known for his works centered on the Vietnam War. Born on July 1, 1946, in Austin, Minnesota, O'Brien grew up in a family deeply rooted in Midwestern values. He graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a degree in English and went on to serve as an infantryman in the Vietnam War, where he was deployed to Vietnam from 1968 to 1970. His experiences in the war significantly influenced his writing, particularly his novel "The Things They Carried" (1990), a collection of interlinked short stories that explores the emotional impact of war on soldiers. O'Brien's works are noted for their exploration of the complexities of truth and memory, themes he further developed in novels like "Going After Cacciato" (1978) and "In the Lake of the Woods" (1994). His writing style is characterized by a blend of realism and mythical storytelling, as exemplified in his famous quote: "The truth depends on the teller." O'Brien has received numerous awards for his work, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 1979 for "Going After Cacciato," and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, in 1986 and 1990. Today, he continues to write and teach at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, where he imparts his literary wisdom to future generations of writers. His enduring works have left an indelible mark on American literature, offering profound insights into the human condition amidst the horrors of war.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The things we thought we couldn't bear happened and then didn't kill us." - From "The Things They Carried"

This quote from Tim O'Brien emphasizes resilience, survival, and the human capacity to endure even the unbearable. It suggests that adversity, hardship, or trauma—the things that we once thought would break us—may occur, but we somehow find a way to survive and carry on. The quote underscores the strength of the human spirit in overcoming challenges and moving forward despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

"We are here and it is now. Furthermore, we have the capacity to remember the past and imagine the future. We carry these gifts with us always, but most of us jettison them like burdens, abandoning memory and imagination, living only for this moment." - From "How to Tell a True War Story"

Tim O'Brien's quote underscores the unique human ability to reflect on our past experiences and envision future possibilities. He suggests that while we are firmly rooted in the present, our capacity for memory and imagination is constant companions, shaping our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. However, many people tend to neglect these abilities, choosing instead to live solely in the immediate moment. This quote serves as a reminder to value and utilize our potential to remember and imagine, for they are essential components of human experience and personal growth.

"I wanted to write stories that mattered, but I also wanted to write well." - From "The Things They Carried"

In this quote, Tim O'Brien expresses a dual commitment to both the thematic significance and the literary craft of his writing in the work "The Things They Carried". He aspires to create stories that carry weight, impact, or importance, while simultaneously prioritizing skillful execution in terms of style, structure, and language. This desire to be both meaningful and well-written reflects a dedication to creating impactful literature with a lasting impression on readers.

"Stories are for joining the past to the future." - From "The Things They Carried"

This quote emphasizes the role stories play in bridging the gap between our past experiences and our future aspirations. By sharing our stories, we create connections with others, allowing them to understand our backgrounds, learn from our struggles, and appreciate our triumphs. In this way, stories help us to make sense of our lives, preserve valuable lessons for posterity, and inspire hope for the future. Essentially, stories are a means by which we join our past selves with our future potential selves.

"To kill another, you must dehumanize him. To dehumanize him, you must not see his humanity." - From "On The Rainy River"

This quote suggests that to justify taking a human life, one often needs to deny or overlook the victim's essential humanity—their emotions, thoughts, desires, and shared humanness with the perpetrator. By dehumanizing the other, one can more easily disregard their inherent value and moral worth, making it psychologically easier to commit violent acts. This idea is explored by Tim O'Brien in "On The Rainy River" as he grapples with his own role as a soldier during the Vietnam War, highlighting the complex moral dilemmas that war often presents.

I showed up in October 1946, part of an early surge that would become a great nationwide baby boom. My sister Kathy was born a year later.

- Tim O'Brien

Year, Boom, Surge, Year Later

In the summer of 1954, after several years in Austin, Minnesota, our family moved across the state to the small, rural town of Worthington, where my dad became regional manager for a life insurance company. To me, at age 7, Worthington seemed a perfectly splendid spot on the earth.

- Tim O'Brien

Insurance, Small, Became, Austin

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.

- Tim O'Brien

Representation, Accurate, Inward

A bullet can kill the enemy, but a bullet can also produce an enemy, depending on whom that bullet strikes.

- Tim O'Brien

Enemy, Depending, Whom, Strikes

By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths.

- Tim O'Brien

Stories, Telling, Separate, Pin

Vietnam was the defining event for my generation. It spilled over into all facets of American life - into music, into the pulpits, in churches of our country. It spilled over into the city streets, police forces. And even if you were born late in the generation, Vietnam was still part of your childhood.

- Tim O'Brien

City, Country, Streets, Defining

At the bottom, all wars are the same because they involve death and maiming and wounding, and grieving mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.

- Tim O'Brien

Death, Bottom, Fathers, Grieving

America before the 1960s was a pretty innocent place. We were the Lone Ranger galloping off to the rescue of the needy and the oppressed of the world, and we could get things done.

- Tim O'Brien

Innocent, Pretty, Before, Galloping

Stories have a special way of putting us inside the people, inside the boots of the soldiers. You're absorbed in a way a documentary or nonfiction can't do for you.

- Tim O'Brien

Soldiers, Stories, Putting, Nonfiction

A small, seemingly inconsequential event can determine a life.

- Tim O'Brien

Small, Seemingly, Determine, Inconsequential

Pinkville was called Pinkville because in the military maps, it was shaded a bright kind of shimmering pink, which signified what was called on the maps a 'built up' area, which was extremely misleading - 'built up' only meant there were little villages and it wasn't just desolate paddy land or unpopulated.

- Tim O'Brien

Pink, Bright, Extremely, Desolate

Who do you call a civilian in a guerilla war? I mean, it might be a farmer by day or a merchant, a housewife, and by night the housewife may be helping to make landmines and booby traps and who knows.

- Tim O'Brien

Might, May, Helping, Traps

I grew up with the Gene Kelly look at war. The cheerful kind of stories you tell about a horrendous war.

- Tim O'Brien

Kind, Stories, Gene, Cheerful

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.

- Tim O'Brien

Some, Always, Interviewing, Concise

The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on the ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow.

- Tim O'Brien

Guilt, Like, Tracing, Sergeant

To be memorable and to have dramatic impact, informational detail must function actively within the dynamic of a story.

- Tim O'Brien

Impact, Within, Function, Actively

It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing.

- Tim O'Brien

Writing, Important, Very, Articulate

The world comes at me that way - comes at me in clumps of stuff, sometimes little vignettes and sometimes whole stories. And then the rest is erased by the internal filter that erases things for the same reason you'd forget swatting a mosquito.

- Tim O'Brien

Rest, Reason, Internal, Filter

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

Through, Fiction, Subject, Fiction Writer

I learned that moral courage is harder than physical courage.

- Tim O'Brien

Moral Courage, Than, Learned, Physical Courage

In February 1969, 25 years ago, I arrived as a young, terrified PFC on this lonely little hill in Quang Ngai Province. Back then, the place seemed huge and imposing and permanent.

- Tim O'Brien

Young, Back, Years, Province

Unlike Chicago or New York, small-town Minnesota did not allow a man's failings to disappear beneath a veil of numbers. People talked. Secrets did not stay secret.

- Tim O'Brien

New, Beneath, Allow, Small-Town

I could feel my moral compass as a soldier, in danger of - I could feel the squeeze, the pressure of frustration and anger and fear combining on me... I felt the danger; I felt the squeeze of it.

- Tim O'Brien

Frustration, Could, Squeeze, Combining

I didn't get into writing to make money or get famous or any of that. I got into it to hit hearts, and man, when I get letters not just from the soldiers but from their kids, especially their kids, it makes it all worthwhile.

- Tim O'Brien

Famous, Soldiers, Makes, Letters

Why do fairy tales exist, and why do movies exist? Why do novels exist? There has to be a reason for it; otherwise, none of these things would be there.

- Tim O'Brien

Reason, Why, Otherwise, Novels

In a war without aim, you tend not to aim. You close your eyes, close your heart. The consequences become hit or miss in the most literal sense.

- Tim O'Brien

War, Aim, Sense, Literal

The word war itself has a kind of glazing abstraction to it that conjures up bombs and bullets and so on, whereas my goal is to try to, so much as I can, capture the heart and the stomach and the back of the throat of readers who can lie in bed at night and participate in a story.

- Tim O'Brien

Bed, Throat, Bombs, Whereas

No matter how wonderful the story, it has to move on something, and that is language. The words that I use, the pace, the rhythm and cadences all need to be there. If they're not there, the story is like a boat that just sits there and doesn't move on the ocean.

- Tim O'Brien

Need, Like, Move, Boat

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

Art, Exploration, Fiction, Uncertain

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.

- Tim O'Brien

Some, Rightly, Remained, Decades

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