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
When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of storytelling over the subject matter, such as war, focusing on the craft of writing itself.
Tim O'Brien highlights that, as a writer, his primary concern is not the violent or chaotic elements of a story, like war, but rather the structure and beauty of the narrative itself. He suggests that the essence of writing lies in creating compelling sentences and engaging rhythm, shifting attention from the harsh realities of the subject to the artistry involved in storytelling.
Themes
WritingStorytellingCraftNarrativeArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, I shared this quote to inspire students to focus on their craft rather than the themes they choose.
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.
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
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I write because I'm in love with language; because I like working for myself, inside my head; and because it's the only way I know to make a stab at answering the never-ending questions of the heart that arise simply from the everyday living of our lives.
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