Mary

“It was too late to tell Dally. Would he have listened? I doubted it. Suddenly it wasn't only a personal thing to me. I could picture hundreds and hundreds of boys living on the wrong sides of cities, boys with black eyes who jumped at their own shadows. Hundreds of boys who maybe watched sunsets and looked at stars and ached for something better. I could see boys going under street lights because they were mean and tough and hated the world, and it was too late to tell them that there was still good in it, and they wouldn't believe you if you did. It was too much of a problem to be just a personal thing.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“I could never understand people being scared of things they didn't know nothing about.”
― S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish

“You can't say, 'This is just a stage' when its important to people what they're feeling. Maybe he'll outgrow it someday but right now it's important.”
― S.E. Hinton, That Was Then, This Is Now

“Blind terror in a fight can easily pass for courage.”
― S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish