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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

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
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
You are thirst and thirst is all I know
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

All Knows Thirst
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
But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Always Carry heavy Something
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
Words were different when they lived inside of you.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Different Live Words
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
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
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
The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Boys Rain Summer
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
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
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 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?

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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?

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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