“ The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I thought of what my mom had said. "You talk like a man." It was easier to talk like a man than to be one. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I wanted to tell him not to cry anymore, tell him that what those boys did to that bird didn’t matter. But I knew it did matter. It mattered to Dante. And, anyway, it didn’t do any good to tell him no… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ See, this is the way I see it. Not all anger is the same. Because there are different kids of anger. And you know what else - sometimes, anger is a virtue. As long as you're not making someone bleed. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I couldn't exactly storm away in anger. I'd just have to close my eyes and shut out the universe. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I live in an ecotone. Employment must coexist with goofing off. Responsibility must coexist with irresponsibility. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ ..they were always asking me lots of questions. Questions I didn't want to answer. They wanted to get to know me. Yeah, well, I wasn't interested in being known. I wanted to buy a t-shirt that read: I… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ What did being connected to the world get you? It got you sadder. Look, the world is not sane. If you stay connected to an insane world, well, you just go crazy. This is not a complicated theory. It's… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I wondered what it was like to feel whole, to not feel torn up or stunned out or wigged out or any of those things. I wondered what it was like to walk around the world looking up at the sky instead o… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I’m not a good kid. Yeah, look, I’m just a piece of paper with the word sad and a bunch of cuss words written on it.A lousy piece of paper. That’s me.A piece of paper that’s waiting to be torn up. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ Dad? Dad, no. No. I can't. I can't. Why are you saying these things?""Because I can't stand watching all that loneliness that lives inside you. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I decided that maybe we left each other alone too much. Leaving each other alone was killing us. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ All I knew is that sometimes my father was sad. I hated that he was sad. It made me sad too. I didn't like sad. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ So I was the son of a man who had Vietnam living inside him. Yeah I had all kinds of reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn't help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the wor… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I don't know what the exact shape of my life will take--and what the days to come will bring--except i know that i am happy and my heart is still. I know that I have fallen in love with the word surre… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ I always thought of men as being hard—maybe because I was hard. But there was a softness in Tom that betrayed his large masculine hands and his deep baritone voice. He knew something about love that I… Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“ But the thing is, I didn't make my friends happy and they didn't make me happy. All we did was get stoned out of our minds. That didn't have anything to do with happiness. Benjamin Alire Sáenz
