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Benjamin Alire Sáenz Quotes

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Famous Benjamin Alire Sáenz Quotes

“You are smart, Ari. Very smart. And anyway, being smart isn't everything. People just make fun of you. My dad says it's all right if people make fun of you. You know what he said to me? He said, 'Dante, you're an intellectual. That's who you are. Don't be ashamed of that.'" I noticed his smile was a little sad. Maybe everyone was a little sad. Maybe so.”

Sadness
Book:Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
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“I also knew I had inherited the name of the world's most famous philosopher. I hated that. Everyone expected something from me. Something I just couldn't give. So I renamed myself Ari. If I switched the letter, my name was Air. I thought it might be a great thing to be the air. I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.”

Human NaturePhilosophy Of Life
Book:Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
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“¿Por qué sonreímos? ¿Por qué reímos? ¿Por qué nos sentimos solos? ¿Por qué estamos tristes y confundidos? ¿Por qué leemos poesía? ¿Por qué lloramos cuando vemos una pintura? ¿Por qué se alborota nuestro corazón cuando amamos? ¿Por qué sentimos vergüenza? ¿Qué es esa cosa en las entrañas llamada "deseo"?”

Inspirational Quote
Book:Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
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“I used to think that she [my mother] wanted me to be someone else. But it wasn’t her who wanted me to be someone else - it was me. She pushed and challenged me. And I didn’t like it. But it wasn’t because she wanted to ruin my day. She was, in some ways, like Dante’s mother. They both expected their sons to be decent human beings - and they were going to do everything they could to make that happen. And they sure as hell let us know when we weren’t getting it.”

KindnessParentingQueernessMothers And Sons
Book:Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World
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“I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes happy and on some people’s hearts he writes sad and on some people’s hearts he writes crazy and on some people’s hearts he writes genius and on some people’s hearts he writes angry and on some people’s hearts he writes winner and on some people’s hearts he writes loser.”

GodLife And Living
Book:Last Night I Sang to the Monster
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“He hadn't left any of the stretches that he'd done of me. But he did leave a sketch of my rocking chair. It was perfect. A rocking chair against the bare walls of my room. He'd captured the afternoon light streaming into the room, the way the shadows fell on the chair and gave it depth and made it appear as if it was something more than an inanimate object. There was something sad and solitary about the sketch and I wondered if that's the way he saw the world or if that's the way he saw my world. I starred at the sketch for a long time. It scared me. Because there was something true about it.”

SadSolitudeTrueSketch
Book:Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
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“Así que esta es mi nueva adicción: recordar. Y lo digo en serio. Es tan extraño y tan raro y tan peculiar querer recordar. Se siente mal y se siente bien al mismo tiempo. Se siente mal por la obvia razón de que me sucedieron cosas malas. Se siente bien porque recordar me ayuda a sacar todas las cosas negativas de mi cuerpo. Verán, así es como pienso ahora: mi cuerpo entero, con mi cerebro y mi corazón incluidos, era un vertedero que se lleno de basura. Y bueno, ahora estoy encargándome de la limpieza.”

HeartBodyRememberBrainCorazonCuerpoCerebroRecordarAdiccionAdiction
Book:Last Night I Sang to the Monster
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“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 didn’t. I don’t know where he’d learned it, but it wasn’t something you got from a book, not something you could learn in an online class, not something you could borrow. Maybe it was something you were born with. Some people knew how to love and some people didn’t. Tom was the former. I was the latter. I didn’t know which one of us had it worse”

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Author:Benjamin Alire Sáenz
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