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.
Tim O'BrienThat's what fiction is for. It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.
Tim O'BrienWhen your afraid,reallyafraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world.
Tim O'BrienItโs a hard thing to explain to somebody who hasnโt felt it, but the presence of death and danger has a way of bringing you fully awake. It makes things vivid. When youโre afraid, really afraid, you see things you never saw before, you pay attention to the world. You make close friends. You become part of a tribe and you share the same blood- you give it together, you take it together.
Tim O'Brien