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

Benjamin Alire Saenz

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.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Swimming Water Way
I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Jobs Life Thinking
It gave me something that is really important to me. So I always think about my faith. I always have it, and sometimes I can’t talk about it, and sometimes I can. I am like an adolescent in that way. Teens are asking questions: who is God and what does it mean to have faith?
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Adolescent Always Faith Important Sometimes Talk
If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Addiction Quitting Recovery
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

Bats People Some Thinking
But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Always Carry heavy Something
The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Boys Rain Summer
I wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Beautiful Bigs Smile
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?
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Book Country Family People Real
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

Character Flaws Zero
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

Book Thinking Writing
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

Character Good Judge Naturally Think Work
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

Fake Mostly People Thinking World
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

Book Discuss Family Issue Novel
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

Pain Secret Summer
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

Character Thinking Unconscious Writing

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

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

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