Quotessence
Home / Authors / Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien Quotes

Novelist

Filter quotes by topic

AllStoriesWarFeelsWar StoriesWayKnowsFeltFictionHumansLyingMemoriesThinkingTim O BrienWorldHardMenThe Things They CarriedWantedWritingYears

Famous Tim O'Brien Quotes

“Linda was nine then, as I was, but we were in love...it had all the shadings and complexities of mature adult love and maybe more, because there were not yet words for it, and because it was not yet fixed to comparisons or chronologies or the ways by which adults measure such things...I just loved her. Even then, at nine years old, I wanted to live inside her body. I wanted to melt into her bones -- that kind of love.”

WayYearsKindBodyWantedAdultsBonesNineFixedComplexityComparisonMatureNine YearsKinds Of LoveChronology
Author:Tim O'Brien
Create image

“Even now, as I write this, I can still feel that tightness. And I want you to feel it--the wind coming off the river, the waves, the silence, the wooded frontier. You're at the bow of a boat on the Rainy River. You're twenty-one years old, you're scared, and there's a hard squeezing pressure in your chest. What would you do? Would you jump? Would you feel pity for yourself? Would you think about your family and your childhood and your dreams and all you're leaving behind? Would it hurt? Would it feel like dying? Would you cry, as I did?”

ThinkingWantFeelsWritingYearsStillsI CanHardDreamHurtBehindsSilenceChildhoodDyingCryWindRiversTwentiesPressureLeavingWaveScaredPityBoatYour DreamsChestsBowsI Want YouIt HurtsFrontiersTwenty OneRainyOld YouSqueezingFeel Like Dying
Book:The Things They Carried
Create image