S.e. Hinton Quotes

I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.

If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.

Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold . . .” The pillow seemed to sink a little, and Johnny died.

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.

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

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

Can you see the sunset real good on the West side? You can see it on the East side too.

Things are rough all over.

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.

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

He died violent and young and desperate, just like we all knew he'd die someday.

Get smart and nothing can touch you.

Nothing can wear you out like caring about people.

Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.

I am a greaser. 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!

Dally was so real he scared me.

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...

You know what the crummiest feeling you can have is? To hate the person you love the best in the world.

Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset.

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

Nothing sparkly can stay.

The difference is that was then, this is now.

I liked my books and clouds and sunsets.

There isn't any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.

Asleep, he looked a lot younger than going-on-seventeen, but I had noticed that Johnny looked younger when he was asleep too, so I figured everyone did. Maybe people are younger when they are asleep.

Johnny almost grinned as he nodded. "Tuff enough," he managed, and by the way his eyes were glowing, I figured Southern gentlemen had nothing on Johnny Cade.

I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers.

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.

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

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.

Even the most primite societies have an innate resepect for the insane.

Writer's were supposed to be a litte crazy

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.

I´d rather have anybody´s hate than their pity

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

the person in this picture is really me.

They shouldn't hate each other . . . I don't hate the Socs any more . . . they shouldn't hate . . .

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.

I really do like listening to stuff that's happened to other people. I guess that's why I like to read.

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.

I don't know why I go to school unless for kicks, oh well might as well do dissect a frog.

I made up my mind that I'd get out of that place and I did...I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life, you just have to work till you make it.

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.

...but I've never regretted it. You can't regret experience.

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.

California is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she's on top of the world, not knowing she's dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.

If we don't have each other, we don't have anything.

But Dally, heaters kill people! Ya' kill 'em with switchblades to, don'tcha?

They weren't looking for a fight, they were looking to fit in.

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.

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

They used to be buddies, I thought, they used to be friends, and now they hate each other because one has to work for a living and the other comes from the West Side. They shouldn't hate each other...

I could fall in love with Dallas Winston," she said. "I hope I never see him again, or I will.

I had it then. Soda fought for fun, Steve for hatred, Darry for pride, and Two-Bit for conformity. Why do I fight? I thought, and couldn't think of any real good reason. There isn't any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.

Okay greasers, you've had it.

He sure put things into words good.

If you want to see something funny, it's a tough hood sticking his tongue out at his big brother.

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

Just don't forget that some of us watch the sunset too.

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

Your mother is not crazy. Neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother. He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made the perfect knight in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do.

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.

You know the rules. No jazz before a rumble.

...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.

Y'all were heroes from the beginning. You just didn't 'turn' all of a sudden

...you don't just stop living because you lose someone. I thought you knew that by now. You don't quit!

You read a lot, don't you, Ponyboy?” I was startled. “Yeah, why?” “I could just tell. I'll bet you watch sunsets, too.

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.

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

I guess he had listened to more beefs and more problems from more people than any of us. A guy that'll really listen to you, listen and care about what you're saying, is something rare.

Some people go, some people stay. I'm staying.

Johnny died.

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.

Don’t you know a rumble ain’t a rumble unless I’m in it?

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.

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the dark movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman, and a ride home. I was wishing I looked like Paul Newman - he looks tough and I don't - but I guess my own looks aren't so bad.

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.

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.

Some are going, some are staying....i'm in between.

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.

You can't say, 'This is just a stage' when its important to people what they're feeling. Maybe he'll outgrow it someday but right now it's important.

All my life I wanted somebody who knew more than I did to tell me the truth.

You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still a lot of good in the world.

I gotta cut smoking or I'll never make track next year

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.

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.

You oughta see Kathy's brother. Now there's a hood. He's so greasy he glides when he walks. He goes to the barber for an oil change, not a haircut.

Stay gold, Ponyboy

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.

... Hey, I didn't know you didn't like baloney." I went cold. "I don't like it. I never liked it." Soda just looked at me. "You used to eat it. That's why you wouldn't eat anything while you were sick. You kept saying you didn't like baloney, no matter what it was we were trying to get you to eat." "I don't like it," I repeated.

I really couldn't see what the Socs would have to sweat about - good grades, good cars, good girls, madras and Mustangs and Corvairs - Man, I thought, if I had worries like that I'd consider myself lucky. I know better now.

The shade of difference that separates a greaser from a hood wasn't present in Dally.

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.

It was too late to tell Dally. Would he have listened? I doubted it. 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 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. It was too much of a problem to be just a personal thing.

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.

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.

Man, I didnt know anything like that was going to happen! Honest, Tex, he was on something. Holy cow! I really kid, I been doing this stuff for a year now and I never saw nobody pull a gun before! God Almighty! What if he hadnt missed!' -- Lem 'He didn't.' -- Tex 'What?' -- Lem 'I said he didn't miss. He shot me and it hurts like hell.' -- Tex

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.

Suddenly I realized, horrified, that Darry was crying. He didn’t make a sound, but tears were running down his cheeks. I hadn’t seen him cry in years, not even when Mom and Dad had been killed. (I remembered the funeral. I had sobbed in spite of myself; Soda had broken down and bawled like a baby; but Darry had only stood there, his fists in his pockets and that look on his face, the same helpless, pleading look that he was wearing now.) In that second what Soda and Dally and Two-Bit had been trying to tell me came through. Darry did care about me, maybe as much as he cared about Soda, and because he cared he was trying too hard to make something of me. When he yelled “Pony, where have you been all this time?” he meant “Pony, you’ve scared me to death. Please be careful, because I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.” Darry looked down and turned away silently. Suddenly I broke out of my daze. “Darry!” I screamed, and the next thing I knew I had him around the waist and was squeezing the daylights out of him. “Darry,” I said, “I’m sorry . . .” He was stroking my hair and I could hear the sobs racking him as he fought to keep back the tears. “Oh, Pony, I thought we’d lost you . . . like we did Mom and Dad . . .” That was his silent fear then—of losing another person he loved. I remembered how close he and Dad had been, and I wondered how I could ever have thought him hard and unfeeling. I listened to his heart pounding through his T-shirt and knew everything was going to be okay now. I had taken the long way around, but I was finally home. To stay.