Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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Maybe the sun had set. Maybe the rainbow had lifted—because the light was gone.
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I told you that there were only two things you needed to learn in life. You needed to learn how to forgive. And you needed to learn how to be happy.
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You see, the thing with adults is that respect is just a word they use to guilt us nonadults into doing what they want us to do.
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I want a heart like that, Andy, a heart like a star’s.
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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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Show me a man without regrets and I’ll show you a man without a conscience.
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People talk about the highway of life, but I think that’s crap. Highways are nice and paved, and they have signs telling you which way to go. Life isn’t like that at all. There are days when great things happen and everything is beautiful and perfect, and then, just like that, everything can go straight to hell. It’s like getting drunk. At first it feels kinda nice and all relaxed. And all of a sudden the room is spinning and you are throwing up, and, well, maybe life is a little like that.
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Through all of youth I was looking for you without knowing what I was looking for —W. S. Merwin
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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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Maybe my life isn't all that interesting but at least I'm busy. Busy doesn't mean happy. I know that. But at least I'm not bored. Being bored is the worst.
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I wanted to feel those words in my mouth as I spoke them aloud. Words could be like food—they felt like something in your mouth. They tasted like something. “My brother is in prison.” Those words tasted bitter.
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Healthy people have healthy boundaries. Unhealthy people, well, let’s not get into that. It’s like this: some people have walls which means they let no one in. This equals unhealthy. Some people let everyone in and let themselves be stepped all over. This equals unhealthy.
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I wanted to tell her happy was hard for me. But I think she already knew that.
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Because rooms were always full, full of memories and voices and people who were either dead or impossible to love.
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When I was a boy, I used to wake up thinking that the world was ending. I'd get up and look in the mirror and my eyes were sad.
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Sometimes he feels as though God is nothing more than a set of jaws that bites down on his heart.
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Mima. No despair. She was dying, and there was not one sign of despair in her dancing eyes.
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I like the old words better. They're like old friends.
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Moms and God generally get along pretty well.
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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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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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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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But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
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I also knew I had inherited the name of the world's most famous philosopher. I hated that. Everyone expected something from me. Something I just couldn't give. So I renamed myself Ari. If I switched the letter, my name was Air. I thought it might be a great thing to be the air. I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.