“Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary hum...” — Tim O'Brien Quote

“Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behaviors and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary.”

“It's one thing to say you're for the war; it's another thing to send your kid to war - your daughter or your son.”

“In books or films, it is desirable to have a climactic battle scene, but the world does not operate in those gross dramatic terms. In Vietnam, there was a general aimlessness, not just in the physical sense, but beyond that in the moral and ethical sense.”

“I try and take the commonplace - and some of it is writ large, like death - take the commonplace and make it universally resonant, revelatory, and beautiful at the same time.”

“Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing - 'Oh, let's put that sentence there, let's get rid of this' - have become commonplace in films and music too.”

“One rare and exceptional deed is worth far more than a thousand commonplace ones.”