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.

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

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

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.

...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.

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

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