Tim O'Brien Men Quotations

Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

It was very sad, he thought. The things men carried inside. The things men did or felt they had to do.

All that peace, man, if felt so good it hurt. I want to hurt it back.

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. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice.... Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.

Each of us, I suppose needs his illusions. Life after death. A maker of planets. A woman to love, a man to hate. Something sacred. But what a waste.