I never base a character on someone I know. You can get ideas from real life, but every character you write is some aspect of yourself.
S. E. HintonI really do like listening to stuff that's happened to other people. I guess that's why I like to read.
S. E. HintonI made up my mind that I'd get out of that place and I didI learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life, you just have to work till you make it.
S. E. HintonYou 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.
S. E. Hinton