The Things They Carried Events Quotes

He had loved Martha more than his men, and as a consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war. (The Things The...

I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I'm still writing war stories. My daughter Kathleen tells me it's an obsession, that I should write about a little girl who finds a million dollar...

I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war. (On the Rainy River.79)

In any other circumstances it might've ended there. But this was Vietnam, where guys carried guns, and Dave Jensen started to worry. (Enemies.2)

Later we heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight. (Friends.13)

This is true. (How to Tell a True War Story.1)

He seemed a little dazed. Now and then we could hear him cussing, bawling himself out. Anyone else would've laughed it off, but for Curt Lemon it was too much. The embarrassment must've turned a sc...

"Among the men in the Alpha Company… multiplying by maybe." (Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong)

Beyond anything else, he was afraid of disgracing himself, and therefore his family and village. (The Man I Killed.19)

This is why I keep writing war stories: He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. (Ambush.1-2)

A while later, when we moved out of the hamlet, she was still dancing. "Probably some weird ritual," Azar said, but Henry Dobbins looked back and said no, the girl just liked to dance. (Style.1)

[Norman] could not talk about it and never would. The evening was smooth and warm.If it had been possible, which it wasn't, he would have explained how his friend Kiowa slipped away that night bene...

Norman is back in the story, where he belongs, and I don't think he would mind that his real name appears. (Notes.20)

"Ten billion places we could've set up last night, the man picks a latrine." (In the Field.28)

It's time to be blunt… I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth. (Good Form.1-6)

"Like coming over here. Some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it." (Field Trip.183)

I was down there with him… I was the beast on their lips—I was Nam—the horror, the war. (The Ghost Soldiers.138)

He took off his boots and socks, laid out his medical kit, doped himself up, and put a round through his foot. Nobody blamed him, Sanders said. (Night Life.24-5)

But this too is true: stories can save us […] in a story, which is a kind of dreaming, the dead sometimes smile and sit up and return to the world. (The Lives of the Dead.1)