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

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 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.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Life Refuse Sometimes Storm World
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
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 wondered if my smile was as big as hers. Maybe as big. But not as beautiful.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Beautiful Bigs Smile
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
Words were different when they lived inside of you.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Different Live Words
But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Always Carry heavy Something
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

Hands Mystery Sometimes Universe
The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Boys Rain Summer
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
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
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’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
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

Daughter Parent Son Thinking
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

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

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

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