Tim O'brien said this quote

“ I suppose if we gain anything from this unsought experience it will be an appreciation for honesty- frankness on the part of our politicians, our friends, our loves, ourselves. No more liars in public places. (And the bed and the bar are, in their way, as public as the floor of Congress.) ”

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That's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.

~ Tim O'brien

A thing may happen and be a total lie, another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.

~ Tim O'brien

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

~ Tim O'brien

In any war story, but especially a true one, it's difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen. What seems to happen becomes its own happening and has to be told that way. The angles of vision are skewed. When a booby trap explodes, you close your eyes and duck and float outside yourself. .. The pictures get jumbled, you tend to miss a lot. And then afterward, when you go to tell about it, there is always that surreal seemingness, which makes the story seem untrue, but which in fact represents the hard and exact truth as it seemed.

~ Tim O'brien