QuoteProject
Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth.
Tim O'Brien
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Fiction can be deceptive yet serves to reveal deeper truths about reality.

Tim O'Brien's quote suggests that while fiction may portray events that are not factual, it serves a higher purpose by illuminating universal truths and human experiences. This underscores the power of storytelling in conveying complex emotions and insights that factual representation may fail to capture.

Themes

FictionTruthStorytellingLiteratureDeception

In practice

Example use cases

In a book club discussing the role of narratives in understanding history.

More from Tim O'Brien

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.
Tim O'BrienRead
...you find yourself studying the fine colors on the river, you feel wonder and awe at the setting of the sun, and you are filled with a hard, aching love for how the world could be and always should be, but now is not.
Tim O'BrienRead
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'BrienRead
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'BrienRead
In fiction workshops, we tend to focus on matters of verisimilitude largely because such issues are so much easier to talk about than the failure of imagination.
Tim O'BrienRead
War is a fundamental aspect of human existence. It's good to know what war entails and what the human sacrifice is.
Tim O'BrienRead

Similar quotes

I'm aware that many of my friends will be saddened and shocked, or shock-saddened, over some of the chapters in 'The Catcher In the Rye.' Some of my best friends are children. In fact, all my best friends are children. It's almost unbearable for me to realize that my book will be kept on a shelf out of their reach.
J. D. SalingerRead
What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.
Salman RushdieRead
As soon as histories are properly told there is no more need of romances.
Walt WhitmanRead
Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Samuel JohnsonRead
Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy.
Paul AusterRead
There is the myth that writing books for children is easier than writing books for grownups, whereas we know that truly great books for children are works of genius, whether it's 'Alice in Wonderland' or the 'Gruffalo' or 'Northern Lights.' When it's a great book, it's a great book, whether it's for children or not.
Michael MorpurgoRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.