The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZIt’s a complex thing when you’re writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious.
More Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
-
-
I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
Words were different when they lived inside of you.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
Absent parents aren’t abusive per se. They’re neglectful. They love in a very imperfect way. There are parents like that, and they do love their daughters and sons, but they’re not parents in the way that we might think of it.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn’t get–and never would get.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
Mostly, I think people are fake. Well, what do you expect? The fake world we live in conspires to make us all fakes.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
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.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
I bring my best instincts to my work. For instance – and I come by this naturally, or I think I do – I am a very good judge of character.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
It’s a complex thing when you’re writing a novel, because so much of it is conscious and planned and deliberate, and so much of it is not, and it has to be a dance between the conscious and the unconscious.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ -
Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ