Yrene Saenz Quotes

#1. I'd never really been very close to other people. I was pretty much a loner. I'd played baseball and done the Cub Scout thing, tried the Boy Scout thing
but I always kept my distance from the other boys. I never ever felt like I was part of their world.
Boys. I watched them. Studied them.
In the end, I didn't find most of the guys that surrounded me very interesting. In fact, I was pretty disgusted,
Maybe I was a little superior. But I don't think I was superior. I just didn't understand how to talk to them, how to be myself around them. Being around other guys didn't make me feel smarter. Being around other guys made me feel stupid and inadequate. It was like they were all part of this club and I wasn't a member. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#2. For a few minutes I wished that Dante and I lived in the universe of boys instead of the universe of almost-men. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#3. It all happened in an instant, like a flash of lightning, only the lightning wasn't coming from the sky, it was coming from somewhere inside of me. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#4. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Yeah, that was a good song. My theme song. But really I thought it was everybody's theme song. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#5. If you don't remember something, it doesn't hurt. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#6. There was so little difference between a fist that was trying to hold everything in and the fist that was ready to release all its frustration and rage. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#7. Gina and Susie were cool, though. No hint of the beer they said they were going to score. They played good girls to my parents. Not that they weren't good girls. That's exactly what they were: good girls who wanted to pretend they were bad girls but who never would be bad girls because they were too decent. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#8. She does not know how to measure her life. When Sam was alive, she measured it through his love. She had always measured herself through the look in his eyes. She is afraid of admitting that to herself. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#9. You know, the thing about not talking very much is that people think you're mature. They make things up about you. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#10. Right then I witnessed the world they lived in go completely silent. The world was flooding with their tears. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#11. But he didn't know exactly where the worry was coming from. He just had a feeling. Like thunder in the sky. Only the thunder was in his stomach. There would be a storm. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#12. I took out my journal. I'd been avoiding writing in it. I think I was afraid all my anger would spill out on the pages. And I just didn't want to look at all that rage. It was a different kind of pain. A pain I couldn't stand. I tried not to think. I just started writing. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#13. His sadness was unbearable to watch. Far worse than his rage. He looked so defeated in that sorrow - like he was surrendering, like the battle was too much. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#14. I was fifteen.
I was bored.
I was miserable. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#15. Maybe that's what life was. You zigged and you zagged and zigged and zagged some more. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#16. The world did have too many words. The sound of the rain was all we needed. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#17. I was getting an A for work. But not for talent. The story of my life. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#18. He was funny and focused and fierce. I mean the guy could be fierce. And there wasn't anything mean about him. I didn't understand how you could live in a mean world and not have any of that meanness rub off on you. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#19. He'd run and run until his heart burst into flames. And he would become nothing but ash. No body, no heart, no bone, no flesh - just carbon matter scattering in the wind. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#20. The sun flickers. Like a flame hit by a sudden gust of wind. Like the lights of a bomb shelter during an air raid. Even the sun flickers. That's what she kept telling herself. A gust, a bomb, a small explosion. Then the disruption passed - everything calm again. Everything returning to normalcy. Except that she felt herself trembling. Except she knew that this was the beginning. It was her body that had flickered. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#21. You're like your dad, you know that? I mean, I know he's not your real - " "Yes, he is." She nodded. "Yeah, he is." And right then I wished with all my crooked heart that my dad had been the man who'd fathered me. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#22. It started to rain and we just sat. Sat and watched the rain in silence. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#23. Her fading voice was the one I heard the loudest. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#24. Healthy people have healthy boundaries. Unhealthy people, well, let's not get into that. It's like this: some people have walls which means they let no one in. This equals unhealthy. Some people let everyone in and let themselves be stepped all over. This equals unhealthy. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#25. That was how she said goodbye to the world. To the people she loved. She was going to leave this earth the same way her mother had. With all the grace of the old world. The old, dying world. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#26. I wanted to feel those words in my mouth as I spoke them aloud. Words could be like food - they felt like something in your mouth. They tasted like something. "My brother is in prison." Those words tasted bitter. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#27. We left him there. Louie. We left him. I watched my father lean into his own arms and sob. There was something about the sound of a man in pain that resembled the sound of a wounded animal. My heart was breaking. All this time, I'd wanted my father to tell me something about the war and now I couldn't stand to see the rawness of his pain, how new it was after so many years, how that pain was alive and thriving just beneath the surface. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#28. You're fighting this war in the worst way possible."
"I don't know how to fight it, Dad."
"You should ask for help," he said.
"I don't know how to do that, either. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#29. Don't break my heart," she said. Almost soft, but the rage coming back into her voice when she said heart - like a wave that is about to crest and crash against the shore. "Don't break my fucking heart. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#30. On the way back from the doctor's office, my mom asked me if I'd written back to Dante. "Not Yet". "I think you should write to him". "Mom, I'm your son, not a suggestion box". She shot me a look. "Keep your eyes on the road", I said. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#31. Her laugh was as fragile as the leaves she had raked when I was five. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz

#32. It was as if all the scenes of my life were running through my brain like a pack of dogs running through the streets, dogs running and running, unable to stop even though they were tired. #Quote by Benjamin Alire Saenz