yok > yok's Quotes

“Words could be like food - they felt like something in your mouth. They tasted like something.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I didn't know what to do with that piece of information. So I just kept it inside. That's what I did with everything. Kept it inside.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“And why was it that some guys had tears in them and some had no tears at all? Different boys lived by different rules.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Did anybody ever tell you that you weren't normal?'

'Is that something I should aspire to?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I didn’t think it was my job to accept what everyone said I was and who I should be.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“What do you love, Ari? What do you really love?"

"I love the desert. God, I love the desert."

"It's so lonely."

"Is it?"

Dante didn't understand. I was unknowable.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I was in love with the innocence of dogs, the purity of their affection. They didn't know enough to hide their feelings. They existed. A dog was a dog. There was such a simple elegance about being a dog that I envied.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I didn't care because what mattered is that Dante's voice felt real. And I felt real. Until Dante, being with other people was the hardest thing in the world for me. But Dante made talking and living and feeling seem like all those things were perfectly natural. Not in my world, they weren't.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I came to understand that my father was a careful man. To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“If we studied birds, maybe we could learn to be free.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“One summer night I fell asleep hoping the world would be different when I woke. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, the world was the same.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“The Ari I used to be didn't exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn't exist yet.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Feeling sorry for myself was an art. I think a part of me liked doing that.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Man loneliness was much bigger than boy loneliness.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I’m not into all this academic stuff. Too much analysis. What ever happened to reading a book because you liked it?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I was harder than Dante. I think I'd tried to hide that hardness from him because I'd wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn't hard.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“In order to be wildly popular you had to make people believe that you were fun and interesting I just wasn't that much of a con artist.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Ari?” My father’s voice was soft. “Ari, Ari, Ari. You’re fighting this war in the worst possible way.”

“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.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“The whole world seemed to be quiet and calm and I wanted to be the world and feel like that.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“For a few minutes I wished that Dante and I lived in the universe of boys instead of the universe of almost-men.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Maybe the problem between me and my father was that we were both the same.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“It was like she understood something about me that she'd never quite understood before. I always felt that when she looked at me, she was trying to find me, trying to find out who I was. But it seemed at that moment that she saw me, that she knew me. But that confused me.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Yeah, I had all kinds of tragic reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn't help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“The funny thing is, I sometimes think my mother loves my father more than he loves her. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Maybe. Is love a contest?"
"What does that mean?"
"Maybe everyone loves differently. Maybe that's all that matters.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Birds exist to teach us things about the sky.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“You belong everywhere you go. That’s just how you are.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“..and then it started hailing. It was so beautiful and scary, I wondered about the science of storms and how sometimes it seemed that a storm wanted to break the world and how the world refused to break.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Dogs don't censor themselves. Maybe animals were smarter than people. The dog was so happy. My mom and dad too. It felt good to know that they loved the dog, that they let themselves do that. And somehow it seemed that the dog helped us be a better family.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“And the hurt was so deep that it was way beyond tears and so their faces were dry.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe