The Outsiders

by S.E. Hinton

Besides, I look better with long hair.

I usually lone it anyway, for no reason except that I like to watch movies undisturbed so I can get into them and live them with the actors. When I see a movie with someone it’s kind of uncomfortable, like having someone read your book over your shoulder. I’m different that way.

Greasers are almost like hoods; we steal things and drive old souped-up cars and hold up gas stations and have a gang fight once in a while.

If it hadn’t been for the gang, Johnny would never have known what love and affection are.

But I was still lying and I knew it. I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.

The girl looked at me. I was half-scared of her. I’m half-scared of all nice girls, especially Socs.

I hate to tell people my name for the first time.

Ponyboy’s my real name and personally I like it.

I don’t care too much for girls yet. Soda says I’ll grow out of it. He did.

It seemed funny to me that Socs—if these girls were any example—were just like us. They liked the Beatles and thought Elvis Presley was out, and we thought the Beatles were rank and that Elvis was tuff, but that seemed the only difference to me.

“Rat race is a perfect name for it,” she said. “We’re always going and going and going, and never asking where.

You’re not so smart at ten.

It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren’t so different. We saw the same sunset.

That made me mad, I mean making a fool of myself in front of everyone.

Two-Bit took a long drag on his cigarette, Johnny slouched and hooked his thumbs in his pockets, and I stiffened. We can look meaner than anything when we want to—looking tough comes in handy.

“It’s okay,” I said, wishing I was dead and buried somewhere. Or at least that I had on a decent shirt.

My mother was golden and beautiful . . .

Things gotta get better, I figured. They couldn’t get worse. I was wrong.

“We’ll need money. And maybe a gun. And a plan.” Money. Maybe a gun? A plan. Where in the world would we get these things?

He dug Hank Williams—how gross can you get?

It would be a miracle if Dally loved anything. The fight for self-preservation had hardened him beyond caring.

Hank Williams”—he rolled his eyes and added a few adjectives after ‘Hank Williams.’

Man, I thought New York was the only place I could get mixed up in a murder rap.”

Not even the rattling of the train could keep me awake, and I went to sleep in a hoodlum’s jacket, with a gun lying next to my hand.

I wish I was home, I thought absently, I wish I was home and still in bed.

I can lie so easily that it spooks me sometimes—Soda says it comes from reading so much. But then, Two-Bit lies all the time too, and he never opens a book.

It was my pride. It was long and silky, just like Soda’s, only a little redder. Our hair was tuff—we didn’t have to use much grease on it. Our hair labeled us greasers, too—it was our trademark. The one thing we were proud of. Maybe we couldn’t have Corvairs or madras shirts, but we could have hair.

“Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.”

It seemed to me that I had always lived in the church, or maybe lived during the Civil War and had somehow got transplanted. That shows you what a wild imagination I have.

“Hey, Ponyboy”—he fumbled with a piece of paper in his back pocket—“I gotta letter for you.” “A letter? Who from?” “The President, of course, stupid. It’s from Soda.”

Johnny was a good fighter and could play it cool, but he was sensitive and that isn’t a good way to be when you’re a greaser.

Sent from heaven? Had he gotten a good look at Dallas?

I had taken the long way around, but I was finally home. To stay.

Maybe people are younger when they are asleep.

and that I made the honor roll at school all the time and might be a future track star. (Oh, yeah, I forgot—I’m on the A-squad track team, the youngest one. I’m a good runner.)

Moral: What’s the safest thing to be when one is met by a gang of social outcasts in an alley?” “A judo expert?” I suggested. “No, another social outcast!”

“You oughtta see Kathy’s brother. Now there’s a hood. He’s so greasy he glides when he walks. He goes to the barber for an oil change, not a haircut.”

Socs were just guys after all. Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.

Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the sights you want to see.

Years of living on the East Side teaches you how to shut off your emotions. If you didn’t, you would explode. You learn to cool it.

Why do people sell liquor to boys? Why? I know there’s a law against it, but kids get it anyway.

You’re a nice kid, Ponyboy. Do you realize how scarce nice kids are nowadays?

Me and Soda and Darry always got spruced up before a rumble. And besides, we wanted to show those Socs we weren’t trash, that we were just as good as they were.

Tonight we could be proud of it. Greasers may not have much, but they have a rep. That and long hair. (What kind of world is it where all I have to be proud of is a reputation for being a hood, and greasy hair? I don’t want to be a hood, but even if I don’t steal things and mug people and get boozed up, I’m marked lousy. Why should I be proud of it? Why should I even pretend to be proud of it?)

I’d tried drinking once before. The stuff tasted awful, I got sick, had a headache, and when Darry found out, he grounded me for two weeks.

Soda fought for fun, Steve for hatred, Darry for pride, and Two-Bit for conformity. Why do I fight? I thought, and couldn’t think of any real good reason. There isn’t any real good reason for fighting except self-defense.

If you want to see something funny, it’s a tough hood sticking his tongue out at his big brother.

they had a leader and were organized; we were just buddies who stuck together—each man was his own leader.

It could be just the other way around—half of the hoods I know are pretty decent guys underneath all that grease, and from what I’ve heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean—but people usually go by looks.

They used to be buddies, I thought, they used to be friends, and now they hate each other because one has to work for a living and the other comes from the West Side. They shouldn’t hate each other . . . I don’t hate the Socs any more . . . they shouldn’t hate . . .