Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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It was a small idea. But at least the idea was mine.
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I thought masturbating was embarassing. I didn't even know why. It just was. It was like having sex with yourself. Having sex with yourself was really weird. Autoeroticism.
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Life had its seasons, and the season of letting go would always come, but there was something very beautiful in that, in the letting go. Leaves were always graceful as they floated away from the tree.
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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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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.
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Maybe kissing was part of the human condition.
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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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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 the sun had set. Maybe the rainbow had lifted—because the light was gone.
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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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Everywhere you went, you left something behind. Maybe someday he would come back and get it.
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People love a show, especially when freaks are involved.
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Sometimes heaven was feeling nothing. Maybe being drunk was a little like dying and going to heaven. Like living in the light. He kept thinking of Ileana. She was eight now.
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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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It was better to be alone miserable. It was better to drown.
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If you don't remember something, it doesn't hurt.
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I was fifteen. I was bored. I was miserable.
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I took out my journal. I'd been avoiding writing in it. I think I was afraid all my anger would spill out on the pages. And I just didn't want to look at all that rage. It was a different kind of pain. A pain I couldn't stand. I tried not to think. I just started writing.
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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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Maybe life was just a series of phases—one phase after another after another. Maybe, in a couple of years, I’d be going through the same phase as the eighteen-year-old lifeguards. Not that I really believed in my mom’s phase theory. It didn’t sound like an explanation—it sounded like an excuse. I don’t think my mom got the whole guy thing. I didn’t get the guy thing either. And I was a guy.
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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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Listen, the road to happiness is a long fucking road trip. You can't take The freeway. Back roads, buddy, that's all you got. Unpaved back roads And bad weather. Storms, baby. Don't expect to get there fast. And don't expect yourself or your car to arrive in mint condition.
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The world did have too many words. The sound of the rain was all we needed.
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She thinks that life is crueler and more beautiful than she had ever imagined.