Do you know what dead skin looks like when they take off a cast? That was my life, all that dead skin. It was strange to feel like the Ari I used to be. Except that wasn’t totally true. The Ari I used to be didn’t exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn’t exist yet.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Do you think it will always be this way?”“What?”“I mean, when do we start feeling like the world belongs to us?” I wanted to tell him that the world would never belong to us. “I don't know,” I said. “Tomorrow.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Everyone was always becoming someone else. Sometimes, when you were older, you became someone younger. And me, I felt old. How can guy who’s about to turn seventeen feel old?

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Feeling sorry for myself was an art.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

For the music to be over so soon. For the music to be over when it had just begun. That was really sad.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Grief was a terrible and beautiful thing.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

He tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he'd rather be kissing boys. That's exactly what he said. I didn't know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to be Dante and if I was going to be his friend, I would just have to learn to be okay with it.

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?

— Benjamin Alire Sáenz