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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.

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

Addiction Quitting Recovery
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
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
Words were different when they lived inside of you.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Different Live Words
You are thirst and thirst is all I know
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

All Knows Thirst
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 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
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 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
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
The heart can get really cold if all you’ve known is winter.
BENJAMIN ALIRE SAENZ

Cold Heart Winter
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 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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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