Benjamin Alire Sáenz Quotes

I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.

Summertime. It was a song. It was a season. I wondered if that season would ever live inside of me.

I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn't like feeling like that.

Words could be like food - they felt like something in your mouth. They tasted like something.

He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he'd rather be kissing boys. That's exactly what he said. I didn't know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to be Dante and if I was going to be his friend, I would just have to learn to be okay with it.

I wished it was raining," he said."I don't need the rain," I said. "I need you.

I was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life.

And prayer? How could you pray to a God you wanted to hit?

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.

I think you love him more than you can bear.

I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes happy and on some people’s hearts he writes sad and on some people’s hearts he writes crazy and on some people’s hearts he writes genius and on some people’s hearts he writes angry and on some people’s hearts he writes winner and on some people’s hearts he writes loser.

The problem is not that I don't love my mother and father. The problem is that I don't know how to love them.

We think there's a reason for everything, as if life was supposed to make sense. It's not exactly math. People aren't numbers. Everybody knows life doesn't make any sense at all, so we just better deal with the whole mess. Have a beer. Have a cup of coffee. Have a piece of cake. Go out to a movie. Enjoy the Popcorn.

Feeling sorry for myself was an art.

People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a word.

All I knew is that sometimes my father was sad. I hated that he was sad. It made me sad too. I didn't like sad.

This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.

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.

Dad? Dad, no. No. I can't. I can't. Why are you saying these things?""Because I can't stand watching all that loneliness that lives inside you.

I wondered what it would be like, to love a girl, to know how a girl thinks, to see the world through a girl's eyes. Maybe they knew more than boys. Maybe they understood things that boys could never understand.

I hadn't even solved the mystery of my own body.

No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to remind myself what an asshole I was?

One of my roommates, Rafael, he's an expert on monsters. Not that he talks about them. I can just tell. People who have monsters recognize each other. They know each other without even saying a word.

I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.

I wish I didn’t have a heart that God wrote Sad on.

You're fighting this war in the worst way possible." "I don't know how to fight it, Dad.""You should ask for help," he said."I don't know how to do that, either.

Adam says I isolate. He is addicted to telling me that I spend too much time in my head. It’s an unhealthy behavior. Look, I don’t see how not bothering other people with your screwed-up vision of the world constitutes unhealthy behavior.

There are worst things in life than kissing boys.

You know what the worst thing about adults is? ...They're not always adults. But that's what I like about them.

I wanted to tell him not to cry anymore, tell him that what those boys did to that bird didn’t matter. But I knew it did matter. It mattered to Dante. And, anyway, it didn’t do any good to tell him not to cry because he needed to cry. That’s the way he was.

I wanted to buy a T-shirt that read: I AM UNKNOWABLE.

Life was like that- there would always be something scratching at the door. And whatever was scratching would just scratch and scratch until you opened the door.

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.

We'd been so sure of ourselves, but now we were lost.

I mean, okay, let's say we're all going to get better. Let's just pretend we will. Fine. Where are we going to go after we get better? What are we going to do with all of our newfound healthy behaviors? Back out into the world that screwed us up and screwed us over. This does not sound promising.

For the music to be over so soon. For the music to be over when it had just begun. That was really sad.

The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more.

The thing about tears is that they can be as quiet as a cloud floating across the desert sky.

Someday, I'm going to have to break some of your rules, Mom.""I know," she said. "Try to do it behind my back, will you?¨You can bet on that, Mom.¨We both sat there and laughed.

I’d rather have a cup of coffee and a cigarette than live in all that honesty.

The day he came home from the hospital, he cried. I held him. I thought he would never stop.I knew that a part of him would never be the same.They cracked more than his ribs.

I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.

I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.

So I was the son of a man who had Vietnam living inside him. Yeah I had all kinds of reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn't help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.

I guess I didn't have it so bad.Maybe everybody didn't love me,but i wasn't one of those kids that everyone hated,either.I was good in a fight.So people left me alone.i was almost invisible.i think i liked it that way.And then Dante came along.

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.

Water was something he loved, something he respected. He understood its beauty and its dangers. He talked about swimming as if it were a way of life.

Healthy people have healthy boundaries. Unhealthy people, well, let’s not get into that. It’s like this: some people have walls which means they let no one in. This equals unhealthy. Some people let everyone in and let themselves be stepped all over. This equals unhealthy.

The problem with parents is that they're adults.

Some boys... Are perfect shits. & other boys are very, very beautiful.

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.

Summer was here again. Summer, summer, summer. I loved and hated summers. Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That's why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.

I think the therapists around this place think that if you know yourself, then somehow you’ll be better and healthier and you’ll be able to leave this place and live out your days as a happy and loving human being. Happy. Loving. I hate those words. I’m supposed to like them. I’m supposed to want them. I don’t. Don’t like them, don’t want them. This is the way I see it: if you get to know yourself really well, you might discover that deep down inside you’re just a dirty, disgusting, and selfish piece of shit. What if my heart is all rotted out and corrupted? What about that? What am I supposed to do with that information? Just tell me that. Most of the time I get the feeling that I’m just an animal disguised as an eighteen-year-old guy. At least I’m hoping that maybe deep down inside I’m a coyote.

See, this is the way I see it. Not all anger is the same. Because there are different kids of anger. And you know what else - sometimes, anger is a virtue. As long as you're not making someone bleed.

It started to rain and we just sat. Sat and watched the rain in silence.

I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.

Try it again," I said. "Kiss me.""No," he said."Kis

He tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.

Grief was a terrible and beautiful thing.

He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he'd rather be kissing boys. That's exactly what he said. I didn't know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to be Dante and it I was going to be his friend, I would just have to learn to be okay with it.