In Perfect Light Quotes

“Maybe the heart did change shape. And not just when it loved. When it was hurt. When it was angry. When it hated. When it remembered. When it yearned. When it mourned.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“God, it would never go away, this anger, this rage that was like the ceaseless movement of the spring winds through the desert, this knot in his guts, this splinter in his heart that shot a pain through him that eventually found its way into his lungs, then out of his mouth and into the open air, the sound making the whole world turn away from him. It would never go away, never, never, and there would never be any peace. [...] Maybe he had it all wrong, maybe he wasn't a victim at all, not at all, because he had decided that this was the only thing that would ever be truly his, and so he clung to it, would cling to it forever.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“It makes me angry that you hate yourself for something that somebody else made you do. Don't let them take any more. Don't you do that Andres."
"None of this does any good, Grace. All these visits, all this talking, all this strolling down fucking memory lane. It doesn't help. And you know why it doesn't help? Because everything that's happened - it lives so deep inside me that the only way I can ever get rid of it is to die."
"That's not true, Andres."
"It is true. Happiness isn't in the cards for everyone, Grace.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Because he said it as if he was the first human being who'd ever noticed. Maybe that's why so many people trusted him, because he had something in his voice, because he was well-spoken and had learned to modulate his speech-just so-and somehow, with that calm and controlled voice, he managed to rearrange the chaos of the world in such a way as to make it appear as if there really were a plan.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Sam had once told him that the shape of the human heart changed every time it loved someone.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Why did people think they could be alone? Everyone you loved or hated or touched or who made you tremble or bruised you—they were always there, ready to enter and take over the room. It didn’t matter at all if you opened the door or not. They came rushing in. They knew the way, knew how to make themselves at home.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“She stores so many of his words in her head that she feels as if she has become nothing more than a book he has written.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Love is a storm that twists and mangles us. If you love—if you really love—if you have that kind of heart—then you know. (And if you don’t, there is no explaining.) The storm comes from within. There is nothing you can do to prepare.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“It was always easier to be disgusted after the fact. It was easier to shake your head and be outraged, as if the outrage was proof of civility - a sign that the world hadn't died, that it could still scream out in horror, proof that its heart was still beating.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Maybe you're just in love with being an outsider. You can join the human race any time you want to."
"What makes you think I want to join? I live in the kind of world that looks at me like I'm some kind of freak. You know, when I told Dave I hadn't gone to college, he flinched. Just for a second. He was so surprised. I don't think he could believe a guy like me could be smart or articulate about anything-because I hadn't gone to college. Maybe it's better if people think you're stupid or slow. They don't expect anything. I live in a world that doesn't expect anything of me because it's already decided I don't matter.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“People were wired to hell. He wanted to growl like a rabid mastiff when he heard someone say, "The body is a machine." What asshole thought of that? Screwed up and angry and wanting love, fucking desperate to get it and not knowing how to get it, and willing to do anything just to get a taste of it. Or worse, striking out because you couldn't get it-all that love you wanted. The body was not a machine. Machines and computers, he could deal with. There was always a solution for the problem.
What was the solution for him?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“¿Cómo será morir? ¿Qué clase de luz habrá allá en la muerte? Tal vez solo exista la oscuridad. Tal vez no haya más que una larga, larga noche.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Sometimes heaven was feeling nothing. Maybe being drunk was a little like dying and going to heaven. Like living in the light. He kept thinking of Ileana. She was eight now.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“And it seemed as if the pounding rain would tear off the roof of their house. For an instant, Andrés felt as if there would never again be any light in their house. It would always be dark. And then he thought that no matter how much they’d tried to change this house into something else, it would always be that house they found the first day they moved in. A house with no light. A house with no one in it. A house that smelled of a hundred years of waste and war. A heartless, heartless house.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Everywhere you went, you left something behind. Maybe someday he would come back and get it.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“And understood that rage could be quiet. Could be soft. Rage didn’t have to be a killer.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“What will it be like, to die? What kind of light is there in death? Perhaps there will only be darkness. Perhaps there is nothing but a long, long night. Nothing but a long, long night.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“But why? Why don’t I want to fight when fight is all I’ve ever known and loved? I’ve fought for every inch of joy I’ve ever known.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“She could almost see his smile. A sunrise. Breaking the darkness.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Your pain’s become the only light you know. You want to punish yourself. You think your life has to be a tragedy.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Maybe the sun had set. Maybe the rainbow had lifted—because the light was gone.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Who hurt you? When did it happen? How many times? Where? Tell me. Why do you hate yourself? Where do you keep the hurt?”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Remember this: Nothing is as simple as a storm. Ask anyone. They will tell you—those who know about storms—to get out of its path. If you can. If you have time. They will tell you nothing can stop a storm. Save yourself. Run. But there is no running. Laugh at yourself for thinking of escape. Remember this: Nothing can destroy a storm except itself. It must hurt and blow and wail till it dies. You will not be alive to clean up the debris. All the light will be gone.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“They trampled the world with their sick and twisted and crooked kind of love. The bastard didn’t think that anyone else’s love mattered at all. As if a father’s love knew everything, could see everything, could cure everything. And what would have happened if that man, Robert Lawson, had been allowed to keep his son? What would have fucking happened then? Men like him and Mando, they didn’t understand anything but their own imperfect hearts. That was their sickness—that they believed themselves to be the center of all light. That kind of light was a darkness of the land. A plague that was killing them all.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“For no reason at all, he thought that she looked like a nun. The beautiful kind. The kind that gave and gave because that’s what they knew how to do. And the giving made them more beautiful.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“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.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“Somehow, miraculously, they forced themselves, told themselves they were going to live. They wrote themselves new lives. Fictions, perhaps, but what did it matter? They had kept the chaos at bay. They had managed to stop cursing the darkness. They’d lit a torch.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“And what constituted a cure? What was healing for a damaged human being? Who needed help and who didn’t? And anyway, was there really a cure for the truly hurt? People could be totaled, just like cars.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“God, tired, all he wanted to do was sleep, be in bed, dreaming of palo verdes in bloom, the yellow blossoms bursting in the blue sky like firecrackers. He wanted to dream soft hands rubbing his skin. He pictured himself melting beneath those hands, like butter or ice cream or anything else that wasn’t human.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light

“And every time I did spectacularly well in my classes, and I'm here to tell you that I did spectacularly well, I could always see the look of surprise on my professors' faces. You don't think I noticed? What you saw on Dave's face, I saw every damned day of my academic career. So what, Andres? I wanted to do something, to be something - and I did it. I don't think I deserve a medal, and I don't think I'm particularly special. I wanted to do something, and I figured out a way to do it.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, In Perfect Light