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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.

Benjamin Alire Saenz

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

Beautiful Bigs Smile
The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Cold Heart Winter
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 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
But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

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

Different Live Words
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
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
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
If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Addiction Quitting Recovery
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
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 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
The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Boys Rain Summer
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
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
You are thirst and thirst is all I know
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

All Knows Thirst
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 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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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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