“Any soldier will tell you, if he tells the truth, that proximity to death brings with it a corresponding proximity to life. After a firefight, there is always the immense pleasure of aliveness. The trees are alive. the grass, the soil — everything. All around you things are purely living, and you among them, and the aliveness makes you tremble.”

—  Tim O'Brien , book The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried (1990), How to Tell a True War Story

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Tim O'Brien 25
American novelist 1946

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