We couldn't get along without him. We needed Johnny as much as he needed the gang. And for the same reason.

... Hey, I didn't know you didn't like baloney." I went cold. "I don't like it. I never liked it." Soda just looked at me. "You used to eat it. That's why you wouldn't eat anything while you were sick. You kept saying you didn't like baloney, no matter what it was we were trying to get you to eat." "I don't like it," I repeated.

I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers.

My boyfriend suggested I write two pages a day. He wouldn't take me out if I hadn't done my two pages. That's how I wrote my second novel.

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.

Johnny almost grinned as he nodded. "Tuff enough," he managed, and by the way his eyes were glowing, I figured Southern gentlemen had nothing on Johnny Cade.

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