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
...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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects a deep appreciation for beauty while also expressing longing for a better world.
Tim O'Brien’s quote evokes a sense of wonder and appreciation for the beauty of nature, particularly the colors of a sunset over a river. However, it also carries an underlying melancholy, as it acknowledges a disconnect between the ideal world that could exist and the reality that is currently present. This duality of awe and yearning encapsulates a profound philosophical reflection on existence and human emotions.
Themes
WonderBeautyNatureLongingLove
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might use this quote to highlight the beauty of nature and our responsibility to protect it.
More from Tim O'Brien
All quotes →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
It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.
Tim O'BrienRead
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If one is devoid of hope and thanksgiving, he cannot for long remain sinless, for he will, in despair, have slackened his resolve. Feelings of futility foster vulnerability. Self-pity is such a busy stagehand, rearranging the scenery to help sin make its entrance. No wonder the prophets say that without faith in the Lord, there is no hope.
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