Tim O'Brien Quotes

A woman's flattery may inflate a man's head a little; but her criticism goes straight to his heart, and contracts it so that it can never again hold quite as much love for her.

When someone fears losing your affection, he or she will strive to keep it. Perhaps you have strived to keep someone's affection, too. Fear of loss is not love.

Those who love to be feared fear to be loved.

All I wanted was just what everybody else wants, you know, to be loved.

Everyone loves to be loved.

You can't just turn love on and off.

I'm too obsessed that the people who say critical things about me are right, even though I'm getting to do something I love.

I have a great need for affection from an audience. I don't know whether this is because I had such a tough life when I was a child.

I think all actors - they'll hate me for saying this - but we are babies. We like to be loved, and we'll do anything if we're loved.

I continually acted up to get attention. My father gave me that, and once he left, I felt that I didn't have any.

My sister was born a couple years after I was, and I realized that I wasn't getting enough attention, as much attention as I used to before she showed up, and then I learned pretty early on that if I could do a silly dance or make grown-ups laugh, then the attention would come back to me, and I would be accepted.

Every girl wants the same thing - to be accepted and loved for who she is.

Sexuality is often tied in with something you feel you lack in yourself and look for in others.

Sometimes you can be with someone that you love, but you know it's not healthy for you. You stay with them because you can't stand the thought of them being with someone else. It kills you.

Jimmy found himself wishing to make a dent in Crake, get a reaction; it was one of his weaknesses, to care what other people thought of him.

When I was at home, I wasn't shy. I was the clown at home, because I was loved. It was in the outside world that I was judged and I wasn't loved. That was very clear to me, that I wasn't loved. So I became very quiet. You know, those little girls you see in those pictures that look like they want to hunch, I was trying to disappear into my shoulder blades. The quietest person in the classroom, that was me. But that wasn't me at home.

He gives my hand a tight squeeze, but that desperation, that urgency between us is gone. No insecurities. Max and Fang. Fang and Max. No longer a question. We just are.

Everybody just wants to be loved, and nobody feels loved enough in high school.

...people liking you or not liking you is an accident and is to do with them and not you. That goes for love too, only more so.

In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.

I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons.

You can tell a lot about what a man lacks by watching what he is cynical about, and many of us are cynical about love.

What everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

What are you thinking?" he asks. I know Gage hates it when I cry - he is completely undone by the sight of tears - so I blink hard against the sting. "I'm thinking how thankful I am for everything," I say, "even the bad stuff. Every sleepless night, every second of being lonely, every time the car broke down, every wad of gum on my shoe, every late bill and losing lottery ticket and bruise and broken dish and piece of burnt toast." His voice is soft. "Why, darlin'?" "Because it all led me here to you.