Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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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. That afternoon, I was just a boy. Not even close to being a man.
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She stores so many of his words in her head that she feels as if she has become nothing more than a book he has written.
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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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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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Young men and women come of age when they look at their parents and see them not only as their parents but as people. They gain a lot of compassion, and it's easier to accept their flaws.
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When I walked into the house, I went in search of one of my dad's bottles. Not that they were that hard to find. He hid bottles all over the house. I knew where they all were. That was one of my hobbies, finding where my dad hid his bottles. It was my version of looking for Easter eggs. In my house, Easter lasted forever.
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We don’t always do the right things, you know? We don’t always say the right things.
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You know what I think, Ari? I think Mexicans don’t like me.
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I hated living in the small and claustrophobic atmosphere of my house. It didn’t feel like home anymore. I felt like an unwanted guest.
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If summer was a book then I was going to write something beautiful in it. In my own handwriting. But I had no idea what to write.
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I wasn't big on family gatherings. Too many intimate strangers. I smiled a lot, but really I never knew what to say.
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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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I was harder than Dante. I think I'd tried to hide that hardness from him because I'd wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn't hard.
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I’ve expanded my vocabulary.” I nudged him. “I’m preparing for college.” “How many new words a day?” “You know, a few. I like the old words better. They’re like old friends.
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She retreated to her own desert, prayed and fought with God there.
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Tears. They’re like seeds in a watermelon. Good for spitting out.
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He looked like an angel. And all I wanted to do was put my fist through his jaw. I couldn't stand my own cruelty.
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He’s like a sunflower, Grace. He leans into me as if I were the source of all light.
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The world is being run by sober people--and it doesn't look like it's working out all that well.
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We have this huge discourse on family in this country, but no one deconstructs it the same way. People talk about "the American family." The right wing has this thing - Focus on the Family. What the hell is that? I don't want to just discuss the issues - I want family to be a real part of the character of the novels I write, and I don't like to write things that feel like issue books.
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Talking is fantastically overrated. Too many people do too much of it. It stuns the hell out of me how so many people like to talk. Sharkey, for example. If talking is so good for you, what the hell is Sharkey doing here? The guy tears me up. Talking does not heal you. Talking just adds to the noise pollution in the world. If we were really serious about going green, then maybe we’d all just be quiet.
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Ad we interviewing each other? Something like that. What position am I applying for? Best friend. I thought I already had the job. Don't be so sure, you arrogant son of a bitch.
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What did being connected to the world get you? It got you sadder. Look, the world is not sane. If you stay connected to an insane world, well, you just go crazy. This is not a complicated theory. It's just simple logic.
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I hated God for giving me a heart. What good were they? Hearts? Having one got me exactly where?