S. E. Hinton

My goal from being a child was to have a happy home life.

The thing is, the Tulsa experience that I wrote about in 'The Outsiders' is closer to the universal experience than it would be if I wrote it from L.A. or New York. It's an everyman story.

Any writer who gives a reader a pleasurable experience is doing every other writer a favor because it will make the reader want to read other books. I am all for it.

Sometimes, I feel like I spent the first part of my life wishing to be a teen-age boy, and the second part condemned to being one.

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.

I just felt being part of my peer group so strongly. I was immersed in teen culture, but not taken in by it.

I go straight from thinking about my narrator to being him.

The Outsiders' cast in particular was a joy to be around - sweet kids, normal goofy teenagers off camera and serious artists on. They were great. I never got them mixed up with the characters, though. Each of them had his own strong personality.

I do feel that the boys are getting left out. Girls will read boys' books, but boys won't read girls' books. If you're writing for a girl, you've got most of the audience on your side anyway.

I grew up with my cousins, who were as close as brothers, and frankly, I didn't like what girls were expected to do. I liked horseback riding, playing football, going to rodeos. I wanted to be in jeans all the time, and I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to conform to a certain standard, so I didn't.

I was a 'young adult' when I wrote 'The Outsiders,' although it was not a genre at the time. It's an interesting time of life to write about, when your ideals get slammed up against reality, and you must compromise.

I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.