Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
-
Dante and I were cursed with parents who cared. Why couldn't they just leave us alone? What ever happened to parents who were too busy or too selfish or just didn't give a shit about what their sons did?
-
They broke more than his ribs.
-
This boy would dream her forever.
-
He said I was too sad a nd that some day I wouldn't be sad anymore – and maybe then I would let someone love me.
-
The Ari I used to be didn't exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn't exist yet.
-
The sky was angry and shouting, and it reminded Andrés of how Mando and his father had shouted at each other and had drowned out the sound of love.
-
And everything in the world that mattered was in the happy stories Andrés was telling. And everything in the world was Ileana listening to the brother she loved. And everything in the world was waiting.
-
There's nothing ordinary about you. Nothing ordinary at all.
-
I loved the different rules of summer.
-
Maybe kissing was part of the human condition.
-
There is a randomness to this ballet of death. This is the order of things. This is the secret to understanding the universe. Everything happens in an instant. Normalcy. And then apocalypse.
-
Like an animal. As if people weren’t animals. She tried to put a face on him. His eyes would betray the chaos of his heart, the riots that were exploding everywhere inside him. His eyes would be so black that they would shine blue in the sun.
-
So I was the son of a man who had Vietnam living inside him. Yeah I had all kinds of reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn't help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.
-
My father decided he would read everything that I read. Maybe that was our way of talking.
-
We laughed again. We couldn’t stop. I wondered what it was we were laughing about. Was it just our names? Were we laughing because we were relieved? Were we happy? Laughter was another one of life’s mysteries.
-
Love is work, amor. It's not something that just happens.
-
No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to remind myself what an asshole I was?
-
Every time someone asks him a question, he just reaches in his pocket and pulls out an answer – but the guy sounds like a cardboard.
-
But in art class, all you had to do was try. I was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life.
-
But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
-
Somehow I’d hoped that this would be the summer that I would discover that I was alive. The world my mom and dad said was out there waiting for me. That world doesn’t actually exist.
-
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.
-
I noticed his smile was a little sad. Maybe everyone was a little sad. Maybe so.
-
I’ll tell you a secret. I’m not responsible for whether my students care or don’t care. That care has to come from them—not me.” “Where does that leave you?” “No matter what, Ari, my job is to care.” “Even when they don’t?” “Even when they don’t.” “No matter what?” “No matter what.