S. E. Hinton

More people thought I was strange because I was a teenage novelist, not because I was from Oklahoma. That's where I got the looks like I was from the zoo.

I like having a private name and a public name. It helps keep things straight.

I could write and help a lot of kids, or teach and help a few and go nuts.

I think that 'The Outsiders' was meant to be written, and I was just picked to write it.

When I was young, all the books were about a Mary Jane and the football player and the prom and ending up with the quiet guy and making your mom happy.

My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. My father was an extremely cold man.

The Outsiders' died on the vine being sold as a drugstore paperback.

I grew up here and my friends are here. There's nothing wrong with here.

When I see a movie with someone it's kind of uncomfortable.

When I was in high school, the genders were so separate from each other. If you weren't 'dating' somebody, you couldn't just be friends with somebody.

Naturally, everything boils down to relationships in my books.

How a piece ends is very important to me. It's the last chance to leave an impression with the reader, the last shot at 'nailing' it. I love to write ending lines; usually, I know them first and write toward them, but if I knew how they came to me, I wouldn't tell.