Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
-
Man loneliness was much bigger than boy loneliness.
-
And why were the voices there, but he knew why and he knew they would always be there, the voices, knocking at his door, taking over his house.
-
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.
-
My dad picked me up and rocked me in the chair. I felt small and weak and I wanted to hold him back but I couldn’t because there wasn’t any strength in my arms, and I wanted to ask him if he had held me like this when I was a boy because I didn’t remember and why didn’t I remember. I started to think that maybe I was still dreaming, but my mother was changing the sheets on my bed so I knew that everything was real. Except me. I think I was mumbling. My father held me tighter and whispered something, but not even his arms or his whispers could keep me from trembling. My mom dried my sweaty body with a towel and she and my dad changed me into a clean T-shirt and clean underwear. And then I said the strangest thing, “Don’t throw my T-shirt away. Dad gave it to me.” I knew I was crying, but I didn’t know why because I wasn’t the kind of guy who cried, and I thought that maybe it was someone else who was crying.
-
I had a feeling there was something wrong with me. I guess I was a mystery even to myself. That sucked. I had serious problems.
-
It could happen anytime. The finger tightens, pulls, and a bullet goes flying through the air. That's how remembering is.
-
God, it would never go away, this anger, this rage that was like the ceaseless movement of the spring winds through the desert, this knot in his guts, this splinter in his heart that shot a pain through him that eventually found its way into his lungs, then out of his mouth and into the open air, the sound making the whole world turn away from him. It would never go away, never, never, and there would never be any peace. Maybe he had it all wrong, maybe he wasn't a victim at all, not at all, because he had decided that this was the only thing that would ever be truly his, and so he clung to it, would cling to it forever.
-
I've learned a few things about ugly memories--they shoot through the heart like a bullet that maims and disfigures. A bullet that doesn't have the decency to kill.
-
Maybe that’s why I felt sad and empty—because I’d missed him all my life.
-
The heart, yeah, sometimes I didn’t get it. But if we were making each other laugh and smile, maybe it was part of the way human beings loved each other.
-
I loved the different rules of summer.
-
This is the way I see it: if you get to know yourself really well, you might discover that deep down inside you’re just a dirty, disgusting, and selfish piece of shit. What if my heart is all rotted out and corrupted? What about that? What am I suppose to do with that information? Just tell me that.
-
Do you think we’ll ever discover all the secrets of the universe?
-
I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes happy and on some people’s hearts he writes sad and on some people’s hearts he writes crazy and on some people’s hearts he writes genius and on some people’s hearts he writes angry and on some people’s hearts he writes winner and on some people’s hearts he writes loser.
-
Being on the verge of seventeen could be harsh and painful and confusing. Being on the verge of seventeen really suck.
-
Typically, I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything.
-
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.
-
I didn't care because what mattered is that Dante's voice felt real. And I felt real. Until Dante, being with other people was the hardest thing in the world for me. But Dante made talking and living and feeling seem like all those things were perfectly natural. Not in my world, they weren't.
-
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.
-
It was warm in the kitchen and I felt safe.
-
The words I’m sorry did not appear in the conversation, though it was what we ate for dinner.
-
I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.
-
Like a girl, but a girl who had always been a woman.
-
I know you sometimes think that people are like books. But our lives don’t have neat logical plots, and we don’t always say beautiful, intelligent things like the characters in a novel. That’s not the way life is.