They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't looking for a fight. They were looking to belong.

Rat race is the perfect name for it,' she said. 'We're always going and going and going, and never asking where. Did you ever hear of having more than you wanted? So that you couldn't want anything else and then started looking for something else to want? It seems like we're always searching for something to satisfy is, and never finding it. Maybe if we could lose our cool we would.

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

It's okay. We aren't in the same class. Just don't forget that some of us watch the sunset too.

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

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

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.