S. E. Hinton
Movies can't ruin books. They can only ruin movies.Collection: Movies
I just felt being part of my peer group so strongly. I was immersed in teen culture, but not taken in by it.Collection: Teen
When I was in high school, the genders were so separate from each other. If you weren't 'dating' somebody, you couldn't just be friends with somebody.Collection: Dating
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.Collection: Experience
I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.Collection: Imagination
How a piece ends is very important to me. It's the last chance to leave an impression with the reader, the last shot at 'nailing' it. I love to write ending lines; usually, I know them first and write toward them, but if I knew how they came to me, I wouldn't tell.Collection: Chance
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.Collection: Home
I was a 'young adult' when I wrote 'The Outsiders,' although it was not a genre at the time. It's an interesting time of life to write about, when your ideals get slammed up against reality, and you must compromise.
I could write and help a lot of kids, or teach and help a few and go nuts.
I think that 'The Outsiders' was meant to be written, and I was just picked to write it.
I do feel that the boys are getting left out. Girls will read boys' books, but boys won't read girls' books. If you're writing for a girl, you've got most of the audience on your side anyway.
More people thought I was strange because I was a teenage novelist, not because I was from Oklahoma. That's where I got the looks like I was from the zoo.
When I see a movie with someone it's kind of uncomfortable.
My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.
If you enjoy reading something, read it.
I like having a private name and a public name. It helps keep things straight.
Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.
I was a tomboy and most of my close friends were male.
I grew up with my cousins, who were as close as brothers, and frankly, I didn't like what girls were expected to do. I liked horseback riding, playing football, going to rodeos. I wanted to be in jeans all the time, and I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to conform to a certain standard, so I didn't.
I grew up here and my friends are here. There's nothing wrong with here.
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.
My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. My father was an extremely cold man.
Naturally, everything boils down to relationships in my books.
I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him.
Any writer who gives a reader a pleasurable experience is doing every other writer a favor because it will make the reader want to read other books. I am all for it.
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.
'The Outsiders' died on the vine being sold as a drugstore paperback.
My goal from being a child was to have a happy home life.
My husband and I get along great. We're both introverts, and it's hard to make new friends.
I find it to be easier to write from a man's point of view.
'The Outsiders' cast in particular was a joy to be around - sweet kids, normal goofy teenagers off camera and serious artists on. They were great. I never got them mixed up with the characters, though. Each of them had his own strong personality.
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.
If people want to find me, they can. They'll see a middle-aged woman wandering around the grocery store, looking to see what to buy for dinner.
I always try to write the best I can.
Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset.Collection: Sunset
nothing can wear you out like caring about peopleCollection: Caring
They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't looking for a fight. They were looking to belong.Collection: Fighting
If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than luckyCollection: Friendship
All my life I wanted somebody who knew more than I did to tell me the truth.Collection: Tell Me The Truth
I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there.Collection: Mind
I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Thinking
You know what the crummiest feeling you can have is? To hate the person you love the best in the world.Collection: Hate
I think that The Outsiders was meant to be written, and I was just picked to write it.Collection: Writing
Some are going, some are staying....i'm in between.Collection: Staying
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.Collection: Brother
The difference is that was then, this is now.Collection: Differences
...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.Collection: Hurt
I advise writing to oneself. If you don't want to read it, nobody else is going to read it.Collection: Writing