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
First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rusack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the emotional weight of unrequited love and the power of hope.
This quote from Tim O'Brien reveals how Lieutenant Jimmy Cross clings to the letters from Martha, symbolizing his yearning for love and connection while facing the harsh realities of war. The act of keeping these letters safe, even though they are not love letters, illustrates the depth of his feelings and the escapism he finds in imagining a relationship that is not fully realized. In a setting defined by violence and loss, his hopes take a poignant form through these simple pieces of correspondence.
Themes
LoveLongingHopeWarLettersConnection
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the emotional toll of war, one might reference this quote to highlight the importance of love and longing.
More from Tim O'Brien
All quotes →...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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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