Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
I wasn't big on family gatherings. Too many intimate strangers. I smiled a lot, but really I never knew what to say.

Quotes to Explore
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Americans worship creativity the way they worship physical beauty - as a way of enjoying elitism without guilt: God did it.
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I can't imagine that I would have been cast in the role, without Jamie Lee giving me a thumbs up.
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I don't have to wait to realize the good old days.
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When George asked me to be the prequels, it was the same kind of meeting - it was very short and to the point. It was nice to see him after a long time, and we met in a hotel room.
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Race prejudice is a gift of nature, intended to preserve in purity the various divisions of mankind which the ages have evolved.
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If the lie is large enough, everyone will believe it.
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Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.
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The trick to any profession is making it look easy.
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If you were to say to me that you needed a romantic and sentimental song in four hours, I would have that song written in four hours.
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When I spend my time out on the campaign trail, it's usually about what I can do for somebody else. I don't like talking about myself, I don't like the whole atmosphere of how people are judged in American politics too often as to what you say instead of what you do. And so for me it's always about what can I do for you? How can I help you?
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Hope & curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. The unknown was always so attractive to me...and still is.
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We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children of Africa, as the sons and daughters of kings and queens, and thereby ignore the Middle Passage and centuries of enforced servitude in the Americas. Although some of us might indeed be the descendants of African royalty, most of us are probably descendants of their subjects, the daughters and sons of African peasants or workers.
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My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.
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And then I knew that I would have to relearn the meaning of every word I had ever learned. I would have to learn how to translate all those words. Thousands of them. Millions of them. And then I smiled and felt the tears running down my face. Finally I understood. It wasn’t the words that mattered. It was me. I mattered. So now I would have to fight to translate myself back into the world of the living.
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Do we police because we fear we can be savages? Do our barricades from each other belie the blinds that keep us strangers to ourselves?
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I wasn't big on family gatherings. Too many intimate strangers. I smiled a lot, but really I never knew what to say.