Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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We stood there for long time. Neither one of us said anything. I felt small and insignificant and inadequate. I hated feeling that way. I was going to stop feeling that way. I was going to stop.
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No extra credit for being decent human beings.
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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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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.
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Summertime. It was a song. It was a season. I wondered if that season would ever live inside of me.
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Maybe dogs were one of the secrets of the universe.
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If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.
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But the thing is that I’m in love with Rafael’s story. I think I understand when Adam says that all our stories are different but in some ways our stories are all the same. I never really got that. But when I start to read Rafael’s journal, it’s as if I can see myself. It’s better than a mirror.
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And prayer? How could you pray to a God you wanted to hit?
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I noticed his smile was a little sad. Maybe everyone was a little sad. Maybe so.
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The words I’m sorry did not appear in the conversation, though it was what we ate for dinner.
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It's always been interesting to me how we mistake good genes for virtue.
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He didn’t say anything. And then I heard him crying. So I just let him cry. There was nothing I could do. Except listen to his pain. I could do that. I could hardly stand it. But I could do that. Just listen to his pain.
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I never cared much for people with money. They were a little too proud of themselves, too entitled. They never entertained the possibility that they might just be overpaid.
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I didn’t feel like a man just then. I felt like a five-year-old boy who didn’t want to do anything except play in a pile of leaves. A five-year-old boy with a greedy heart who wanted his grandmother to live forever.
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I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.
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He hoped the dead couldn’t see the living. He hoped his mother couldn’t see what was happening to them. She didn’t deserve to see this.
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Love is work, amor. It's not something that just happens.
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People can be cruel. People hate what they don’t understand.” “But, Dad, they don’t want to understand.” “Maybe they don’t. But we have to find a way to discipline our hearts so that their cruelty doesn’t turn us into hurt animals.
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Life can be hard. I know how hard it can be.” And then she said, “Déjate querer.” Let yourself be loved.
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When is the right time for anything? Who knows? Living is an art, not a science.
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The storm was fierce. But I wasn’t afraid. I knew my father’s love was fiercer than any storm.
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At twelve, he was very much still a child. Some boys were already on their way to becoming men at twelve. But not this boy, perhaps the most beautiful boy he has ever seen. He is as sad as he is beautiful. He wants to hold Andrés in his arms and tell him no harm will come to him. But he knows that harm has already come. He hopes it has not come to stay.
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I think it means that it’s not other people who make you feel like you’re alone. You do it to yourself.