Tim O'Brien Quotes

People say to me about my music 'it got me through college, it saved my marriage, it helped me to come out.' It's wonderful to be part of someone's life in a big way.'

People are always coming up to me and saying, 'I love you, love your work.' And then the next sentence is, 'I loved your brother.' John made people laugh, and laughter is a powerful thing.

I just look at all the fruit and all the people's lives that are being changed and are being touched. And that's what we really focus on because we hear - every day we get mail, we visit with people, and their lives are being changed.

Every writer dreams of writing a book that will touch people.

I'm always looking for that movie that feels like it's hitting me where I need it.

It was, when I read it, I thought, such a beautiful script. I loved the story. I thought it was well handled. I thought it was even more moving because it was a true story and that made it even more poignant.

To think that my heart and my words and my music saved somebody's life, it takes a while to just sink in with me. But it proves to me that music is powerful.

I want all my books to provoke some kind of response in the reader, to make them think something or feel something or both, and for that to become a part of them and work into their own lives.

When poetry is on the money, 12 words can slay you. I admire that greatly.

Oh yeah; I love when I'm writing something that makes me cry - that's so cool. If it got me to do that, it's going to get someone else to do that.

When someone writes to tell me something I've written made them laugh or cry, I've done my job and done it well. The rest is all semantics.

It feels really good that people are connecting to my music so much.

I rarely get recognized, and whenever I do, it has to do with 'The Leftovers' because it came into someone's life at a particularly important time for them - if they were dealing with grief or loss or whatever tragedy - and they just caught it. And there is no rhyme or reason to the kind of person it is.

Fame is a thing that happens when you do something you love - nobody wants to be famous for the wrong reasons. It's not my goal, but if being more famous means I can get more music out, that's cool.

What always appeals to us are real stories that are authentic and inspire people.

I want to work on projects that I can connect with and those that establish a connectivity with the audience too.

I love getting fan mail. Often, as a writer, you never know what your readers think of a book... you get critical reviews and sales figures, but none of that is the same as knowing you've made a person stay up all night reading, or helped them have a good cry, or really touched their life.

In the finished article, the only thing that is important is whether it moves you or not. There is nothing else that is important at all.

I'd like to do something that hits close to home.

It comes a time in your life that you will no longer live for yourself anymore. You never know how much a person can mean to you until one comes into your life, and changes it for the best.

The good thing is that I have always had wonderful people around me. It's dangerous when you start earning a lot of money and you become famous when you are too young.

People are buying only one thing from you: the way the engagement (hiring you, working with you, dating you, using your product or service, learning from you) makes them feel.

My work is immaterial. It's not painting, it's not sculpture, it's emotions. I'm giving you something to experience yourself.

I'm often moved by the circumstances around some of my characters, but I don't think I've actually cried watching myself.

But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open.