Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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And why the hell was I thinking this crap while Sam was in the other room with a heart that would never be unwounded again? Maybe her heart would never heal. Maybe the hurt would live in her forever. So why in hell was I thinking such stupid and shallow things?
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But maybe there isn’t a logic behind the word family. The truth is, it isn’t always such a good word.
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There’s always a but when you’re losing an argument.
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I want a heart like that, Andy, a heart like a star’s.
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But you know we’re always going to have to rely on the goodwill of those of you who are straight for our survival. And that’s the damned truth.
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When I looked through the telescope, Dante began explaining what I was looking at. I didn’t hear a word. Something happened inside me as I looked out into the vast universe. Through that telescope, the world was closer and larger than I’d ever imagined. And it was all so beautiful and overwhelming and—I don’t know—it made me aware that there was something inside of me that mattered.
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I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.
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It was as if all the scenes of my life were running through my brain like a pack of dogs running through the streets, dogs running and running, unable to stop even though they were tired.
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Maybe the heart did change shape. And not just when it loved. When it was hurt. When it was angry. When it hated. When it remembered. When it yearned. When it mourned.
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And—for the longest second—how he’d wanted to jump in an ocean, scrub himself raw until all of his skin was gone so he could grow a new outer shell, a shell that man hadn’t touched, and he hated how everything came back to him in an instant almost as if it wasn’t a memory at all but a moment in time he was condemned to live and relive, a scene in his life he’d have to step into over and over again until he got his lines right, but he would always get it wrong.
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The Ari I used to be didn't exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn't exist yet.
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Bullshit, Ari. You have the harder rule to follow? Buffalo shit. Coyote shit. All you have to do is be loyal to the most brilliant guy you've ever met—which is like walking barefoot through the park. I, on the other hand, have to refrain from kissing the greatest guy in the universe—which is like walking barefoot on hot coals.
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I’d watched them in all their beautiful courage. I’d watched them as they struggled through their hurts and their wounds.
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Maybe I was a little superior. But I don't think I was superior. I just didn't understand how to talk to them, how to be myself around them. Being around other guys didn't make me feel smarter. Being around other guys made me feel stupid and inadequate. It was like they were all part of this club and I wasn't a member.
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About a boy who had a beautiful heart, and how that boy could make plants grow and how he could make people say good things—even people who liked to say only bad things.
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If you want to be a writer, you don't want to live in a comfortable place.
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We lived in the same house. That much was true enough. But mostly we lived in our own particular and peculiar bodies. Bodies we didn't choose. We hear, we see, we smell, we feel with our eyes and noses, ears and hands. We have minds. We have hearts. We have mouths and tongues. That is all we have. That is the only way we know anything--the the smallness of our own insignificant bodies. And so we remain separate, residents of our own small, separate countries.
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He knew that an angel would give his mother a light, because she’d been good. And she would share the light with his father. Because that’s the way she was.
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Dogs were lucky—they didn’t need to live forever. They weren’t as greedy as people.
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And every time I did spectacularly well in my classes, and I'm here to tell you that I did spectacularly well, I could always see the look of surprise on my professors' faces. You don't think I noticed? What you saw on Dave's face, I saw every damned day of my academic career. So what, Andres? I wanted to do something, to be something - and I did it. I don't think I deserve a medal, and I don't think I'm particularly special. I wanted to do something, and I figured out a way to do it.
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That was the first time I did coke. My body, it was electric. For the first time in my life I felt as if I had a real heart and a real body and I knew that there was this fire in me that could have lit up the entire universe. No book had ever made me feel that way. No human being had ever made me feel like that.
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Maybe that's what life was. You zigged and you zagged and zigged and zagged some more.
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When I got home, I sat on my front porch. I watched the sun set. I felt alone, but not in a bad way. I really liked being alone. Maybe I liked it too much. Maybe my father was like that too. I thought of Dante and wondered about him. And it seemed to me that Dante's face was a map of the world. A world without any darkness. Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that?
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Everything was fading, all the lights in the room going out. And the sun, too. It was all so odd, as if the whole world had stepped out, run away from her—left her. Alone. In the dark. God. Everything was as black as Andrés Segovia’s eyes.