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. Tim O'Brien backgroundbotanydescription share on social
A writer's obligation is to invent: to go beyond what did happen and to look at what could have happened but didn't. Fiction writers are born liars. Tim O'Brien bearfictionhappen Change image and share on social
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 babybearboom Change image and share on social
Stories are not explanations of the world we live in. Science does that, and math does that. Our obligation as fiction writers is to enhance the mysteries. Tim O'Brien enhanceexplanationfiction Change image and share on social
My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead. Tim O'Brien alivedeadincredible Change image and share on social
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 bottomdaughterdeath Change image and share on social
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 characterductexperience share on social
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 beneathchicagodisappear Change image and share on social
