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Birds exist to teach us things about the sky.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
And why the hell was I thinking this crap while Sam was in the other room with a heart that would never be unwounded again? Maybe her heart would never heal. Maybe the hurt would live in her forever. So why in hell was I thinking such stupid and shallow things?
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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He thought that everyone should listen to her voice, because there was so much sadness and happiness in it, all at the same time. And he knew she could make the world be quiet, and he thought that maybe the world needed to be quiet. That was the problem with the world—it never stayed quiet long enough to listen.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Talking doesn't help everybody. "Not that you'd know." Yeah. Not that I'd know.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
The Sam I knew was never in control of her emotions. But on that day she was wearing dignity. So much more beautiful than pearls.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I was in love with the innocence of dogs, the purity of their affection. They didn't know enough to hide their feelings. They existed. A dog was a dog. There was such a simple elegance about being a dog that I envied.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Dogs were lucky—they didn’t need to live forever. They weren’t as greedy as people.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I thought of what my mom had said. "You talk like a man." It was easier to talk like a man than to be one.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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It all happened in an instant, like a flash of lightning, only the lightning wasn’t coming from the sky, it was coming from somewhere inside of me.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
As far as I was concerned, the sun could have melted the blue right off the sky. Then the sky could be as miserable as I was.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Two guys without a life? How much fun could that be?
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I didn't think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
Sincere. You are. You take the world home with you every night.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
All my friends thought I was a very happy human being. Because that's how I acted- like a really happy human being. But all that pretending made me tired. If I acted the way I felt, then I doubt my friends would have really hung out with me. So the pretending wasn't all bad. The pretending made me less lonely. But in another was, it made me more lonely because I felt like a fraud. I've always felt like a fake human being.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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You should just sit them down and make them tell you. Make them be adults.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
He didn’t know anyone could cry like that. A wind was coming from inside her.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
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.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
People have parties because they’re sad. They think a party will make them happy.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
We looked at each other. We didn’t really smile. But we were smiling at each other on the inside.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
And like everybody else in the known universe, she didn’t always let herself in on the truth.
Benjamin Alire Saenz
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I wanted to tell her that I thought she had a beautiful heart.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
. . . Alive is a place. Alive is the new word for home.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
She looked into my eyes. I wanted to look away. But I didn't. Her eyes were like the night sky in the desert. It felt like there was a whole world living inside her. I didn't know anything about that world.
Benjamin Alire Saenz -
I wondered if happiness would go away when she died.
Benjamin Alire Saenz