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.
He died violent and young and desperate, just like we all knew he’d die someday.
Nothing sparkly can stay.
It’s okay. We aren’t in the same class. Just don’t forget that some of us watch the sunset too.
You know what the crummiest feeling you can have is? To hate the person you love the best in the world.
I don’t know why I go to school unless for kicks, oh well might as well do dissect a frog.
Even the most primite societies have an innate resepect for the insane.
Y’all were heroes from the beginning. You just didn’t ‘turn’ all of a sudden.
It ain’t fair that we have all the rough breaks!
I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him.
I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.
I think that The Outsiders was meant to be written, and I was just picked to write it.
All my life I wanted somebody who knew more than I did to tell me the truth.
My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. My father was an extremely cold man.
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.
I like having a private name and a public name. It helps keep things straight.
I was a tomboy and most of my close friends were male.
If you enjoy reading something, read it.
Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.
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.
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.