Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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He tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.
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I came to you one rainless August night. You taught me how to live without the rain. You are thirst and thirst is all I know. You are sand, wind, sun, and burning sky, The hottest blue. You blow a breeze and brand Your breath into my mouth. You reach—then bend Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new. You wrap your name tight around my ribs And keep me warm. I was born for you. Above, below, by you, by you surrounded. I wake to you at dawn. Never break your Knot. Reach, rise, blow, Sálvame, mi dios, Trágame, mi tierra. Salva, traga, Break me, I am bread. I will be the water for your thirst.
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In the distance, I can see a storm coming in, the dark clouds and the lightning on the horizon moving towards me. I wait and I wait and I wait for the storm. And then it comes, and the rains wash away the nightmares and the memories. And I'm not afraid.
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The sky was almost black and then it started hailing. It was so beautiful and scary, I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.
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It’s not a good idea to jump into the sewer to catch a rat.
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See, the thing about guys is that I didn't really care to be around them. I mean, guys really made me uncomfortable. I don't know why, not exactly. I just, I don't know, I just didn't belong. I think it embarrassed the hell out of me that I was a guy. And it really depressed me that there was the distinct possibility that I was going to grow up and be like one of those assholes.
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Maybe it wasn't a good idea to rank the people in your life. That's not how the heart worked. The heart didn't make lists.
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He was funny and focused and fierce. I mean the guy could be fierce. And there wasn’t anything mean about him. I didn’t understand how you could live in a mean world and not have any of that meanness rub off on you.
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Why did people think they could be alone? Everyone you loved or hated or touched or who made you tremble or bruised you—they were always there, ready to enter and take over the room. It didn’t matter at all if you opened the door or not. They came rushing in. They knew the way, knew how to make themselves at home.
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It was always easier to be disgusted after the fact. It was easier to shake your head and be outraged, as if the outrage was proof of civility - a sign that the world hadn't died, that it could still scream out in horror, proof that its heart was still beating.
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Maybe my dad just didn't need words to get by in the world. I wasn't like that. Well, I was like that on the outside, pretending not to need words. But I wasn't like that on the inside. I'd figured something out about myself: on the inside, I wasn't like my dad at all. On the inside I was more like Dante. That really scared me.
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When do we start feeling like the world belongs to us? I don't know. Tomorrow.
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I take the sealed envelope from him—the one that holds the information about my biological father. I ask him for his cigarette lighter. He hands it to me. I look at Sam and Fito and say, “Word for the day.” Sam understands and says, “Nurture.” I take the unopened envelope. I am watching myself as I take the lighter and place it over the edge of the paper. I am watching the envelope burn. I am watching the ashes floating up to the heavens. I am hearing myself as I tell my father, “I know who my father is. I have always known.” And now I am laughing. And my dad is laughing. And Fito is smiling that incredible smile of his. We are watching Sam dance around the yard as Maggie follows her and jumps up and barks. Sam is shouting out to me and the morning sky, “Your name is Salvador! Your name is Salvador! Your name is Salvador!
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Something happened inside me. A huge and uncontrollable wave ran through me and crashed on the shore that was my heart.
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One late afternoon, Dante came over to my house and introduced himself to my parents. Who did stuff like that?
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I knew why people were afraid of the future. Because the future wasn’t going to look like the past. That was really scary.
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Some people have dogs. Not me. I have a therapist. His name is Adam. Some people think it's all very cool to have a therapist. Me, I'm not into this. Will somebody please just give me a dog?
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We were in the middle of a drought, and it hadn’t rained for months and months and months. And that’s when I knew that your father was like the rain. He was a miracle.
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Well, I guess that when you found yourself in the dark, you might as well whistle. It wasn't always going to be morning, and darkness would come around again. The sun would rise, and then the sun would set. And there you were in the darkness again. If you didn't whistle, the quiet and the dark would swallow you up.
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I liked the way he looked at me. I thought he was the kindest man in the world. Maybe everybody was kind. Maybe even my father. But Mr. Quintana was brave. He didn't care if the whole world knew he was kind. Dante was just like him.
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And then we all just started laughing. We laughed our asses off. But I knew that really, all three of us were crying. And I knew there would be tears inside of us all our lives. Because they just left. We were even worth a good-bye. Yeah, there would always be tears inside of us. Because there was an empty space inside the three of us that would always belong to the parent who had refused to love us.
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She had a lot of empathy. Maybe that’s why she liked all those bad boys. They were outcasts. It was like she was picking up strays and taking them in. It’s like she could see past their rough exteriors and see the parts of them that hurt. Maybe she thought she could take away the hurt. She was wrong, of course. But I found it hard to fault her for her good heart.
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They looked at each other. Like they knew everything about each other. Like that. But what exactly did they know, these strangers who were so familiar and intimate? You fought a war with someone, and you knew them. But you only knew the part that was in the war, the part that knew how to fight. The other part, the pedestrian part that lived in the endless calmness of days, you didn’t know that part.
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There are pieces of paper scattered everywhere on the floor of my brain.