What's the safest thing to be when one is met by a gang of social outcasts in an alley? ...No, another social outcast!

California is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she's on top of the world, not knowing she's dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.

You get tough like me and you don't get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothin' can touch you.

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.

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 knew he would be dead, because Dally Winston wanted to be dead and he always got what he wanted.