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Quote by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

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Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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“My answer to Ona's question 'do boys of thirteen and fourteen pose a threat to the girls and women of Molotschna colony?' was yes. Possibly. Every one of us, male or female, poses a potential threat. Thirteen and fourteen-year-old boys are capable of causing great damage to girls and women and to each other. It is a brash age; these boys are possessed of wreckless urges, physical exuberance, an intense curiosity that often results in injury, unbridled emotion including deep tenderness and empathy and not quite enough experience or brain development to fully understand or appreciate the consequences of their actions or words. They are similar to the yearlings, young, awkward, gleeful, and powerful. They are tall, muscular, sexually inquisitive creatures with little to no impulse control. They are children. They are children and they can be taught. I'm a two-bit schoolteacher, a failed farmer, a "shinda", an effeminate man and above all a believer. I believe that with direction, firm love and patience these boys aged thirteen and fourteen are capable of relearning their roles as males in the Molotschna colony”

“I think I can say that effeminate homosexuals are among those who indulge least in sex acts with other boys at school. They seem to realize that these jolly get-togethers are really only a pooling of the carnal feelings of two people who deep down are interested in their dreams of girls. Otherwise they tend to be self-congratulatory pyrotechnical displays of potency.”

“Kevin's parents had bumped me from my upstairs room, The place where last weak i had read Death In Venice and luxuriated in the tale of a dignified grown-up who died for the love of an indifferent boy my age. That was the sort of power i wanted over a man. And i awakened to the idea that a great world existed in which things happened and people changed, took risks-more, took notice: a world so sensitive, like a grand piano, that even a step or a word could awaken vibrations in its taught strings.”