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

Movies can't ruin books. They can only ruin movies.

I was a tomboy and most of my close friends were male.

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

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

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

My characters are fictional. I get ideas from real people, sometimes, but my characters always exist only in my head.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

If people want to find me, they can. They'll see a middle-aged woman wandering around the grocery store, looking to see what to buy for dinner.

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.

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

My husband and I get along great. We're both introverts, and it's hard to make new friends.

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

Naturally, everything boils down to relationships in my books.

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.

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.

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.

Rock musicians, and a vast array of popular-music musicians, due to their wealth, acquired through the mass of their notoriety, are able to be listened to and heard and thus are able to effect change on an international level.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

I'm from Dallas, so I totally get the whole thing. I understand the history and on how big of a scale 'Dallas' was and still is.

I don't care if I'm beautiful; I don't care what I am on the outside. It isn't about the outside.

Although my stories are all very different on the surface, I like to write stories about characters struggling with big problems. I'm always reminded, no matter how different from me one of my characters is from me on the surface, how we're all pretty much the same underneath.

A band is a good way to break up a friendship.

Who runs in circles never gets far.

I don't know why I paint what I paint. I think it comes out - it's kind of my subconscious or something.

The most perfect ape cannot draw an ape; only man can do that; but, likewise, only man regards the ability to do this as a sign of superiority.

It's inspiring for me to know that you've got to step up your game.

We finally understand in general terms how a cell is organized, how its specialized organs function in a well integrated manner to insure its survival and replication.

I'm always happy when I'm cleaning, and besides, I had just found out that I was going to have a baby.

The period from 2001 to 2005 was really tough. My films were not working even though there was an acceptance of a model. I was depressed but did not cry. I cry when I am happy.

Politics are beautiful. They enable a community to live collectively with one another. It's not about stabbing each other in the back; it's about enabling people to reach their dreams and pursue happiness.

Looking back at my high school years, I'm struck by how slowly history can move.

If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.

As you see the political problems are closely connected with the economical problems. With the help of politics, we will open the way for the economy and this is why all these problems are included in the program of the newly elected government.

Don't Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Keep a journal, and learn how to see how you as an individuals sees information so you can learn your own sign language. Meditate and practice psychic self defense and surrounding yourself with prayer.

People that have had genuine abduction experiences that I've met that seem very genuine to me, but they're just confused about why it happened. I've met a lot of people like which I regard as being very genuine... but there's a lot of crazy people out there.

Two great and terrible truths of war are these: War is easy to enter into, but difficult to end. And ultimately, in war there are no winners.

All the reading in the world cannot immunize you from the devastating effects of psychopaths. Everyone, including the experts, can be taken in, conned, and left bewildered by them. A good psychopath can play a concerto on anyone's heart strings.