A Quote by Tim O'Brien
What happened, and what might have happened?
Related Quotes
History is not merely what happened. It is what happened in the context of what might have happened.
His mind worked fast, flying in emergency supplies of common sense, as human minds do, to construct a huge anchor in sanity and prove that what happened hadn't really happened and, if it had happened, hadn't happened much.
Short stories do not say this happened and this happened and this happened. They are a microcosm and a magnification rather than a linear progression.
What great writers have done to cities is not to tell us what happens in them, but to remember what they think happened or, indeed, might have happened. And so Dickens reinvented London, Joyce, Dublin, and so on.
Sure, I had dreams of being a star when I was 18. I could've pushed it, too, but it wouldn't have happened any sooner. I'm lucky. What's happened has happened in spite of me.
The Universe was a silly place at best...but the least likely explanation for it was the no-explanation of random chance, the conceit that abstract somethings 'just happened' to be atoms that 'just happened' to get together in ways which 'just happened' to look like consistent laws and some configurations 'just happened' to possess self-awareness and that two 'just happened' to be the Man from Mars and a bald-headed old coot with Jubal inside.
I tend to take [ to Bridget Jones Diaries] something that nearly happened, or might have happened, and then exaggerate it to make it funny and to make it tie into the themes.
The Advent season is that time when we seek to, in a manner of speaking, mute our memory of what has already happened, that we might brighten our joy that it happened. We leave the already of His advent to taste the bitter of the not yet. We, in short, go back, that we might look forward to His coming.
What happened to the good old days of "Woman as passive recipient?" What happened to being courted? What happened to sitting back under a parasol and granting someone a chance to try to win us over?
Just knowing that there's somebody else out there - that what's happened on this planet has also happened in many other places - that might change our lives in a very subtle way, but it's interesting to know and worth looking for.
Whatever adults don't understand, because they didn't grow up with it, is the thing they're going to be afraid of and try to legislate out of existence. It happened with videogames, it happened with television, it happened with pinball parlours and rock and roll.
As far as the timing, well, I'd write that off to luck as much as anything - I happened to be out looking for a development deal, and Disney happened to think my team and I might be the right people to make a Mickey Mouse game.
I have nothing negative to say because what happened to me has happened to many others and I need to always remember that it was not personal what happened to me.
Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence.
You want to know what happened? YOU happened Rush. That's what happened.
You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘If only I’d…’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it.
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