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I wondered what it was like to feel whole, to not feel torn up or stunned out or wigged out or any of those things. I wondered what it was like to walk around the world looking up at the sky instead of searching the ground, eye to eye with things that crawled.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
On the other hand, Uncle Mickey liked to say that everybody deserved a day off from the truth.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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Guess that's a part of what the living did, they took care of their dead.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
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.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I ask her if she loves me and I always feel bad when I ask her that because it makes me sound so desperate. I ask and ask and ask.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
The world had changed. And this new world was quiet and sad.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I wanted to tell him that all the awful things that happened in the old world were dead. And the new world, the world we lived in now, the world we were creating, that world would be better. But I didn’t say it, because I wasn’t sure it was true.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
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.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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Still as death, and Andrés felt as if it were up to him to make noise so that his sister would know they were still alive.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I live in an ecotone. Employment must coexist with goofing off. Responsibility must coexist with irresponsibility.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
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.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
You fight yourself, Zach. And you keep fighting yourself. And it's killing you because you're fighting the best part of yourself.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Sometimes, you do things and you do them not because you're thinking but because you're feeling. Because you're feeling too much. And you can't always control the things you do when you're feeling too much. Maybe the difference between being a boy and being a man is that boys couldn't control the awful things they sometimes felt. And men could.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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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.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I sometimes think that I don't let myself know what I'm really thinking about. That doesn't make much sense but it makes sense to me. I have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we're thinking about things that we don't know we're thinking about—and those things, well, they sneak out of us in our dreams. Maybe we're like tires with too much air in them. The air has to leak out. That's what dreams are.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
And he wished her anger would come back because she was strong when she was angry.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I have this idea stuck in my head that you have to be born beautiful in order to dream beautiful things. God didn't write beautiful on my heart. I'm stuck with all my bad dreams. Bad dreams for bad boys. I guess that's the way it is for me. Look, there's nothing I can do about it.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Patience is a gift you have to work for.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Love is a storm that twists and mangles us. If you love—if you really love—if you have that kind of heart—then you know. (And if you don’t, there is no explaining.) The storm comes from within. There is nothing you can do to prepare.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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Dreams don't come from nowhere.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
People were wired to hell. He wanted to growl like a rabid mastiff when he heard someone say, "The body is a machine." What asshole thought of that? Screwed up and angry and wanting love, fucking desperate to get it and not knowing how to get it, and willing to do anything just to get a taste of it. Or worse, striking out because you couldn't get it-all that love you wanted. The body was not a machine. Machines and computers, he could deal with. There was always a solution for the problem. What was the solution for him?
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I wanted to tell her happy was hard for me. But I think she already knew that.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
There are more songs living inside her than there are leaves on her tree.
Benjamin Alire Saenz