Author

Inside I feel much like a 12-year-old or a 17-year-old who knows big words.

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.

From Tim O'Brien

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.

From Tim O'Brien

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.

From Tim O'Brien

There's something about being amid the chaos and the horror of a war that makes you appreciate all you don't have - and all you may lose forever.

From Tim O'Brien

The wars don't end when you sign peace treaties or when the years go by. They will echo on until I'm gone and all the widows and orphans are gone.

From Tim O'Brien

To provide background and physical description and all the rest is of course vital to fiction, but vital only insofar as such detail is in the service of a richly imagined story, rather than in the service of good botany or good philosophy or good geography.

From Tim O'Brien

In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination.

From Tim O'Brien

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

From Tim O'Brien

Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behaviors and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary.

From Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien

Notable Quotes

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