S E Hinton Quotes

We gotta do it for Johnny...Let's do it for Johnny! ~ S.E. Hinton

You greasers have a different set of values. You're more emotional. We're sophisticated-cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is real with us. ~ S.E. Hinton

let's do it for Johnny ~ S.E. Hinton

He sure put things into words good. ~ S.E. Hinton

In our neighborhood it's rare to find a kid who doesn't drink once in a while. But Soda never touches a drop - he doesn't need to. He gets drunk on just plain living. ~ S.E. Hinton

They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't looking for a fight. They were looking to belong. ~ S.E. Hinton

There was a silent moment when everything held its breath, and then the sun rose. ~ S.E. Hinton

Get smart and nothing can touch you. ~ S.E. Hinton

Greaser ' didn't have anything to do with it. My buddy over there wouldn't have done it. Maybe you would have done the same thing, maybe a friend of yours wouldn't have. It's the individual. ~ S.E. Hinton

My boyfriend suggested I write two pages a day. He wouldn't take me out if I hadn't done my two pages. That's how I wrote my second novel. ~ S.E. Hinton

Nothing can wear you out like caring about people ~ S.E. Hinton

I find it to be easier to write from a man's point of view. ~ S.E. Hinton

Rat race is the perfect name for it,' she said. 'We're always going and going and going, and never asking where. Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn't want anything else and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we're always searching for something to satisfy is, and never finding it. Maybe if we could lose our cool we would. ~ S.E. Hinton

It's okay. We aren't in the same class. Just don't forget that some of us watch the sunset too. ~ S.E. Hinton

My stomach gave a violent start and turned into a hunk of ice. The world was spinning around me, and blobs of faces and visions of things past were dancing in the red mist that covered the lot. It swirled into a mass of colors and I felt myself swaying on my feet. Someone cried, "Glory, look at the kid!"
And the ground rushed up to meet me very suddenly. ~ S.E. Hinton

We're almost as close as brothers; when you grow up in a tight-knit neighborhood like ours you get to know each other real well. ~ S.E. Hinton

The dawn was coming then. All the lower valley was covered with mist, and sometimes little pieces of it broke off and floated away in small clouds. The sky was lighter in the east, and the horizon was a thin golden line. The clouds changed from gray to pink, and the mist was touched with gold. There was a silent moment when everything held its breath, and then the sun rose. It was beautiful. ~ S.E. Hinton

I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money. ~ S.E. Hinton

I advise writing to oneself. If you don't want to read it, nobody else is going to read it. ~ S.E. Hinton

Movies can't ruin books. They can only ruin movies. ~ S.E. Hinton

You know a guy a longtime, and I mean really know him, you don't get used to the idea that he's dead just overnight. ~ S.E. Hinton

All of a sudden it felt like people were peering over my shoulder, wondering what I would write next. I was blocked for four years. ~ S.E. Hinton

But we can't be everything we read. ~ S.E. Hinton

Mason is ambidextrous. That means that he can use either his right or left hand. For some reason, when I was little, I thought that meant he was part water lizard. Don't ask why. ~ S.E. Hinton

In the daytime you aren't afraid of anything. ~ S.E. Hinton

The way Two-Bit, after the police had taken Dally's body away, had griped because he had lost his switchblade when they searched Dallas.
¨Is that all that's bothering you, that switchblade?¨ a red-eyed Steve had snapped at him.
¨No,¨ Two-Bit had said with a quivering sigh, ¨but that's what I'm wishing was all that's bothering me.¨ ~ S.E. Hinton

I liked my books and clouds and sunsets. ~ S.E. Hinton

You get tough like me and you don't get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothin' can touch you ... ~ S.E. Hinton

What's the safest thing to be when one is met by a gang of social outcasts in an alley? ... No, another social outcast! ~ S.E. Hinton

I´d rather have anybody´s hate than their pity ~ S.E. Hinton

My husband and I get along great. We're both introverts, and it's hard to make new friends. ~ S.E. Hinton

I used to be sure of things. Me, once i had all the answers. I wish i was a kid again, when i had all the answers ~ S.E. Hinton

People get hurt in rumbles, maybe killed. I'm sick of it because it doesn't do any good. You can't win ... even if you whip us. You'll still be where you were before- at the bottom. And we'll still be the lucky ones with all the breaks. So it doesn't do any good, the fighting and the killing. It doesn't prove a thing. ~ S.E. Hinton

Pg.1- "I have light brown, almost red hair and greenish-grey eyes. I wish they were more grey, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have."
pg ?- "Can you see the sunset real good from the west side?" She blinked, startled, then smiled. "Real good."
"You can see it from the east side, too," I said quietly.
"Thanks, Ponyboy." She smiled through her tears. "You dig okay."
She had green eyes. I went on, walking home slowly. ~ S.E. Hinton

... Your back was in flames, that's why!"
I was surprised. "It was? Golly, I didn't feel it! It don't hurt. ~ S.E. Hinton

We couldn't get along without him. We needed Johnny as much as he needed the gang. And for the same reason. ~ S.E. Hinton

Stay gold Ponyboy. Stay gold.

--Johnny quoting Robert Frost ~ S.E. Hinton

It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset. ~ S.E. Hinton

I was desperate for something to read that dealt realistically with teenage life, and I thought others might be, too. ~ S.E. Hinton

If you're going to lead people, you've got to have somewhere to go. ~ S.E. Hinton

I mean, most parents would be proud of a kid like that - good-lookin' and smart and everything, but they gave in to him all the time. He kept trying to make someone say 'No' and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted. For somebody to tell him 'No.' To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something solid to stand on. That's what we all want, really. ~ S.E. Hinton

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff. ~ S.E. Hinton

Sometimes, I feel like I spent the first part of my life wishing to be a teen-age boy, and the second part condemned to being one. ~ S.E. Hinton

Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold. ~ S.E. Hinton

Dally didn't die a hero. He died violent and young and desperate, just like we all knew he'd die someday. Just like Tim Shepard and Curly Shepard and the Brumly boys and the other guys we knew would die someday. But Johnny was right. He died gallant. ~ S.E. Hinton

It ain't fair that we have all the rough breaks! ~ S.E. Hinton

I think that 'The Outsiders' was meant to be written, and I was just picked to write it. ~ S.E. Hinton

I like having a private name and a public name. It helps keep things straight. ~ S.E. Hinton

I knew he would be dead, because Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted. ~ S.E. Hinton

The thing is, the Tulsa experience that I wrote about in 'The Outsiders' is closer to the universal experience than it would be if I wrote it from L.A. or New York. It's an everyman story. ~ S.E. Hinton

Things are rough all over. ~ S.E. Hinton

I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be. ~ S.E. Hinton

When I was young, all the books were about a Mary Jane and the football player and the prom and ending up with the quiet guy and making your mom happy. ~ S.E. Hinton

Race you, I challenged, leaping up. It was a real nice night for a race. The air was clear and cold and so clean it almost sparkled. The moon wasn't out but the stars lit up everything. It was quiet except for the sound of our feet on the cement and the dry, scraping sound of leaves blowing across the street. It was a real nice night. I guess I was still out of shape, because we all thee tied. No. I guess we all just wanted to stay together. ~ S.E. Hinton

the person in this picture is really me. ~ S.E. Hinton

You take up for your buddies, no matter what they do. When you're a gang, you stick up for the members. If you don't stick up for them, stick together, make like brothers, it isn't a gang anymore. It's a pack. A snarling, distrustful, bickering park like the Socs in their social clubs or the street gangs in New York or the wolves in the timber. ~ S.E. Hinton

Writer's were supposed to be a litte crazy ~ S.E. Hinton

Some of us never cry at al. Like Dally and Two-Bit and Tim Shepard--they forgot how at an early age. ~ S.E. Hinton

Need a haircut, greaser? ~ S.E. Hinton

You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don't think he knows. ~ S.E. Hinton

Ponyboy, listen, don't get tough. You're not like the rest of us and don't try to be ... "
What was the matter with Two-Bit? I knew as well as he did that if you got tough you didn't get hurt. Get smart and nothing can touch you ...
"What in the world are you doing?" Two-Bit's voice broke into my thoughts.
I looked up at him. "Picking up the glass."
He stared at me for a second, then grinned. "You little sonofagun," he said in a relieved voice. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just went on picking up the glass from the bottle end and put it in a trash can. I didn't want anyone to get a flat tire. ~ S.E. Hinton

Johnny, you don't know what a few months in jail can do to you, man. You get mean in jail, I just don't wanna see that happen to you like it happened to me, man. Understand?"-Dallas Winston ~ S.E. Hinton

'The Outsiders' died on the vine being sold as a drugstore paperback. ~ S.E. Hinton

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write. ~ S.E. Hinton

If you enjoy reading something, read it. ~ S.E. Hinton

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. ~ S.E. Hinton

Nothing Stay Forever"
"Nature's first green is gold,
"Her hardest hue to hold.
"Her early leaf's a flower;
"But only so an hour.
"Then leaf subsides to leaf.
"So Eden sank to grief,
"So dawn goes down today.
"Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost ~ S.E. Hinton

I never base a character on someone I know. You can get ideas from real life, but every character you write is some aspect of yourself. ~ S.E. Hinton

You read a lot, don't you, Ponyboy?"
I was startled. "Yeah, why?"
"I could just tell. I'll bet you watch sunsets, too. ~ S.E. Hinton

why do you like fights Darry~Ponyboy
He just likes to show off his muscles~Sodapop ~ S.E. Hinton

I guess I just couldn't see standing there
alive, talking, thinking, breathing, being
one second, and dead the next. It really bothered me. Death by violence isn't the same as dying any other way, accident or disease or old age. It just ain't the same. ~ S.E. Hinton

He meant you are gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything is new, dawn. It's just. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. ~ S.E. Hinton

Suddenly it wasn't only a personal thing to me. I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities, boys with black eyes who jumped at their own shadows. Hundreds of boys who maybe watched sunsets and looked at stars and ached for something better. I could see boys going down under street lights because they were mean and tough and hated the world, and it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it, and they wouldn't believe you if you did. ~ S.E. Hinton

Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the things you want to see. ~ S.E. Hinton

Mace, you never read Smoky the Cowhorse,did you?
No.
Well,ol' Smoky, he had somebad things happen to him,had the heart knocked clean out of him.But he hung on and came out of it okay.I've been bashed up pretty good,Mason, but I'm going to make it. ~ S.E. Hinton

Maybe people are younger when they sleep. ~ S.E. Hinton

We had played a kid's version of gang fighting called "Civil War," and then later we had got in on the real thing, we fought with chains and we fought barefisted and we fought Socs and we fought other grease gangs. It was a normal childhood. ~ S.E. Hinton

I could write and help a lot of kids, or teach and help a few and go nuts. ~ S.E. Hinton

I didn't think much about that statement then. But later I would-I still do. I think about it and think about it until I think I'm going crazy. ~ S.E. Hinton

I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. ~ S.E. Hinton

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. ~ S.E. Hinton

I'm a good judge of my own work. ~ S.E. Hinton

I just felt being part of my peer group so strongly. I was immersed in teen culture, but not taken in by it. ~ S.E. Hinton

Ponyboy, I asked the nurse to give you this book so you could finish it. The doctor came in a while ago but I knew anyway. I keep getting tireder and tireder. Listen, I don't mind dying now. It's worth it. It's worth saving those kids. Their lives are worth more then mine, they have more to live for. Some of their parents came by to thank me and I know it was worth it. Tell Dally it's worth it. I'm just going to miss you guys. I've been thinking about it, and that poem, that guy that wrote it, he meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony. That's gold. Keep that way, it's a good way to be. I want you to tell Dally to look at one. He'll probably think you're crazy but ask for me. I don't think he's ever really seen a sunset. And don't be so bugged over being a greaser. You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world. Tell Dally. I don't think he knows.
Your buddy,

Johnny ~ S.E. Hinton

Greasers will still be greasers and Socs will still be Socs. Sometimes I think it's the ones in the middle that are really the lucky stiffs. ~ S.E. Hinton

I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him. ~ S.E. Hinton

My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head. ~ S.E. Hinton

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home ... ~ S.E. Hinton

That's why people don't ever think to blame the Socs and are always ready to jump on us. We look hoody and they look decent. It could be just the other way around - half of the hoods I know are pretty decent guys underneath all that grease, and from what I've heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean - but people usually go by looks. ~ S.E. Hinton

I am a greaser," Sodapop chanted. "I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat up people. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society. Man, do I have fun!"
"Greaser ... greaser ... greaser ... "Steve singsonged. "O, victim of enviornment, underprivelaged, rotton no-count hood!"
Juvenile delinquent, you're no good!" Darry shouted.
Get thee hence, white trash," Two-Bit said in asnobbish voice. "I am a Soc. I am the privelaged and the well-dressed. I throw beer blasts, drive fancy cars, break windows at fancy parties."
And what do you do for fun?" I inquired in a serious, awed voice.
I jump greasers!" Two-Bit screamed, and did a cartwheel. ~ S.E. Hinton

What's a nice, smart kid like you running around with trash like that for? ~ S.E. Hinton

It's not just money. Part of it is, but not all. You greasers have a different set of values. You're more emotional. We're sophistocated- cool to the point of not feeling anything. Nothing is for real with us. You know sometimes I'll catch myself talking to a girl-friend, and realise i don't mean half of what I'm saying. I don't really think a beer blast on the river bottom is supercool, but I'll rave about one to a girl-friend just to be saying something. ~ S.E. Hinton

Yeah," I said. "And I'm gonna look just like him."
The black cat paused and looked me over.
"No you ain't baby. That cat is a prince, man. He is royalty in exile. You ain't never gonna look like that. ~ S.E. Hinton

Greaser ... greaser ... greaser ... " Steve singsonged. "O victim of environment, underprivileged, rotten, no-count hood! ~ S.E. Hinton

I'm not saying that either Socs or greasers are better; that's just the way things are. ~ S.E. Hinton

I grew up here and my friends are here. There's nothing wrong with here. ~ S.E. Hinton

Since I am first of all a character writer, that character's emotions are as vivid to me as my own. I always begin with an emotion after I have established a character in my mind. I feel what they feel. I guess that is why it comes across so strongly. ~ S.E. Hinton

He'll have to do without me, Jamie thought, not looking back. And then clearly, as if he'd been told, he knew Grenville /could/ do without him. There was somewhere else he had to go now, somewhere else he had to be. ~ S.E. Hinton

But if you used to walls all that air can give you the creeps ~ S.E. Hinton

Oh, glory," I said with a groan, "this is all I need to top off a perfect night" I took one last drag on my weed and ground the stub under my heel ~ S.E. Hinton