S. E. Hinton Real Quotations

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.

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.

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.

Dally was so real he scared me.

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

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