Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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There are more songs living inside her than there are leaves on her tree.
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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 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.
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He looked like a summer morning when he smiled, exactly like a summer morning.
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I didn't think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.
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Why do we smile? Why do we laugh? Why do we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why is there a riot in the heart when we love? Why do we feel shame? What is that thing in the pit of your stomach called desire?
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. . . Alive is a place. Alive is the new word for home.
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I live in an ecotone. Employment must coexist with goofing off. Responsibility must coexist with irresponsibility.
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Words were different when they lived inside of you.
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He looked so happy and I wondered about that, his capacity for happiness. Where did that come from? Did I have that kind of happiness inside me? Was I just afraid of it?
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I let him be. Sometimes you have to let people have their own space—even when you are in the same room with them. He taught me that, my dad. He taught me almost everything I know.
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Maybe we don’t always know what we have inside us.
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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.
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His sadness was unbearable to watch. Far worse than his rage. He looked so defeated in that sorrow—like he was surrendering, like the battle was too much.
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There was so little difference between a fist that was trying to hold everything in and the fist that was ready to release all its frustration and rage.
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You should just sit them down and make them tell you. Make them be adults.
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She had all this love in her eyes, and I swear I could drown in that love.
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I’m not into all this academic stuff. Too much analysis. What ever happened to reading a book because you liked it?
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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.
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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.
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There I was. Sitting in my car. In the rain. Talking to Alejandra. And it felt more like home than the place where I slept.
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Who hurt you? When did it happen? How many times? Where? Tell me. Why do you hate yourself? Where do you keep the hurt?
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It was as if she was becoming the light.
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I wondered if that’s what death sounded like. Like a snowflake falling on the ground.