Tim O'brien said this quote

“ Forty-three years old, and the war occurred half a lifetime ago, and yet the remembering makes it now. And sometimes remembering will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That’s what stories are for. Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can’t remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story. ”

Famous Quotes of Tim O'brien

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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