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To generalize about war is like generalizing about peace. Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is true.

— Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried (1990)

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War

More quotes by Tim O'Brien

They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the power of the things they carried.

The Things They Carried (1990)

They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

The Things They Carried (1990)

You were a treasonous pussy if you had second thoughts about killing and dying for plain and simple reasons.

The Things They Carried (1990)

They were afraid of dying but even more afraid to show it.

The Things They Carried (1990)

They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing — these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.

The Things They Carried (1990)

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All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

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The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now.

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Only the dead have seen the end of war.

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Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Tim O'Brien (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.