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

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.

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.

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.

the person in this picture is really me.

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

I was a tomboy and most of my close friends were male.