Top 109 Quotes & Sayings by S. E. Hinton

'The Outsiders' died on the vine being sold as a drugstore paperback.

Naturally, everything boils down to relationships in my books.

Movies can't ruin books. They can only ruin movies.

If you enjoy reading something, read it.

My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. My father was an extremely cold man.

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 could write and help a lot of kids, or teach and help a few and go nuts.

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.

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

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.

I grew up here and my friends are here. There's nothing wrong with here.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

My goal from being a child was to have a happy home life.

I always try to write the best I can.

I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him.

'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.

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.

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

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

When I see a movie with someone it's kind of uncomfortable.

the person in this picture is really me.

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.

It seemed funny that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two 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.

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.

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 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!

The difference is that was then, this is now.

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

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

I think that The Outsiders was meant to be written, and I was just picked to write it.

nothing can wear you out like caring about people

...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.

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

Get smart and nothing can touch you.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I made up my mind that I'd get out of that place and I didI 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.

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.

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

You know the rules. No jazz before a rumble.

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