I had it then. 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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the motives behind violence and challenges the justification for fighting.
In this quote from S.E. Hinton, the author explores the different reasons that people, particularly young men, might engage in fights. While some do so for fun, hatred, pride, or conformity, the speaker is introspective, questioning the true purpose behind their own involvement in violence and concluding that fighting may only be justifiable in self-defense, which prompts a deeper consideration of morality and personal values.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about conflict resolution in schools.
Your mother is not crazy. Neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother. He is merely miscast in a play. He would have made the perfect knight in a different century, or a very good pagan prince in a time of heroes. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything and finding nothing he wants to do.
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.
That's why people don't ever think to blame the Socs and are always ready to jump on us. We look hoody and they look decent. 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.
Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.
Things were rough all over, but it was better that way. That way you could tell the other guy was human too.
...but I've never regretted it. You can't regret experience.
Receive Communion often, very often...there you have the sole remedy, if you want to be cured. Jesus has not put this attraction in your heart for nothing.
War is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror. Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys.
I believe that in intense conflict, far from becoming sharper, differences melt away.
Paul commands: 'Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the Traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or by our letter.' From this it is clear that they did not hand down everything by letter, but there is much also that was not written. Like that which was written, the unwritten too is worthy of belief. So let us regard the Tradition of the Church also as worthy of belief. Is it a Tradition? Seek no further.
Those opposed to abortion cannot simply invoke God's will-they have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.
Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.
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