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 SAENZI 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.
More Benjamin Alire Saenz Quotes
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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 -
I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.
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The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
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If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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?
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Words were different when they lived inside of you.
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But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
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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.
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Mostly, I think people are fake. Well, what do you expect? The fake world we live in conspires to make us all fakes.
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I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.
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The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ