American - Author | October 1, 1946 -
Place is so important to me. The Midwest is like a ghost in my life. It's present as I look out the window now. I see Texas, but if I close my eyes and look out the same window, I'm back in my hometown in Worthington, Minnesota, and I cherish those values and that diction.
Tim O'Brien
LifeEyesMeWindowTexasPresent
With no draft, the only people who went to war were those who wanted to, or at least those who wanted to join the military.
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I learned that moral courage is harder than physical courage.
CourageMoralMoral CourageThan
Stories can encourage us and embolden us to face ourselves and to feel. Stories can make us feel less alone. If we're reading a story that moves us, we can feel that emotion that I feel towards my father or mother or girlfriend. So they can give us late-night company.
FatherMotherAloneReadingFace
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.
PeaceEndYouGoWillGone
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.
DayWarNightFarmerYouMean
When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.
FocusWarWritingStoryThinking
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.
GoodServiceDetailRestStoryOnly
To be memorable and to have dramatic impact, informational detail must function actively within the dynamic of a story.
DetailStoryImpactMemorableWithin
For me, the way to approach a subject such as Vietnam is through storytelling.
MeWayStorytellingThroughVietnam
Poetry is not an issue of form and enjambments. Poetry, as the word is classically used, has to do with sound and sense. It can be rhyme. It can be rhythm, pace, breath.
PoetrySoundRhythmBreathUsed
If I see a phrase that strikes me as ugly, I'll delete it. Or, if I find a way to say something a bit more freshly than it was expressed originally, I'll do it. Ultimately, you want to try to leave behind the best possible paragraph or sentence.
BestUglyMeYouFindPossible
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