"So I stood there like a bump on a log while they surrounded me." (Chapter 1)

"My overactive imagination was running away with me again." (Chapter 5)

"Life was one big joke to Two Bit." (Chapter 1)

"He's got eyes that are like two pieces of pale blue green ice." (Chapter 1)

"Johnny is wanted for murder, and Dallas has a record with the fuzz a mile long." (Chapter 6)

"We could see for miles; see the ribbon of highway and the small dots that were houses and cars. We couldn't watch the sunset, since the back faced east, but I loved to look at the colors of the fields and the soft shadings of the horizon."

(Chapter 5)

"And the ground rushed up to meet me very suddenly."

(Chapter 10)

"I heard our Ford's vvrrrooooom and thought: Soda's driving."

"You're bleedin' like a stuck pig." (Chapter 1)

"The concession stand had a line a mile long." (Chapter 2)

"If you don't stick up for them... it isn't a gang anymore. It's a pack. A snarling, distrustful, bickering pack like the Socs... or the street gangs... or the wolves in the timber." (Chapter 2)

"Someone put his hand over my mouth, and I bit it as hard as I could, tasting the blood running through my teeth." (Chapter 1)

"Soda attracted girls like honey attracted flies." (Chapter 1)

"The moon wasn't out but the stars lit up everything. It was quiet except for the sound of our feet on the cement and the dry, scraping sound of leaves blowing across the street."

(Chapter 12)

"Soda always takes up for me."

(Chapter 1)

"He's busy," Buck snapped, and someone in his living room yelled "A-ha!" and then "Yee-ha.""

(Chapter 4)

"If you can picture a little dark puppy that has been kicked too many times and is lost in a crowd of strangers, you'll have Johnny." (Chapter 1)

"Johnny worshiped the ground Dallas walked on..."

(Chapter 5)

"They walked around slowly, silently, smiling."

(Chapter 1)

"We saw the same sunset."

(Chapter 3)

Superman is a famous superhero known for having godlike powers which include flying, super strength, invulnerability, x-ray vision, and the ability to shoot laser beams from his eyes.

In the following quote from The Outsiders (chapter 5), what does the allusion to Superman tell us about Dally and Darry's character?

"Of all of us, Dally was the one I liked least. He didn't have Soda's understanding or dash, or Two-Bit's humor, or even Darry's superman qualities."

Great Expectations is a book written by Charles Dickens in the late 1800s. The story follows a boy named Pip who is born poor and - through mysterious circumstances - is later taught how to be more like a rich gentleman. One of his main struggles in the novel is that he finds it difficult to fit in with rich society because he was born to a poor family.

What can we infer about Ponyboy's life and experience based on this allusion to Great Expectations from Chapter 1?

"I was still thinking about it while I was doing my homework that night. I had to read Great Expectations for English, and that kid Pip, he reminded me of us--- the way he felt marked lousy because he wasn't a gentleman or anything, and the way that girl kept looking down on him."

In Chapter 5, Ponyboy and Johnny are reading the book Gone with the Wind and end up talking about southern gentlemen, comparing them to their friends Soda, Dally, and Two-Bit. Southern gentlemen in the book were known for having good manners, treating others well, and being brave.

Based on their conversation, what can you infer about what Ponyboy (our narrator) and Johnny each think of Dally?

"I bet [southern gentlemen] were cool ol' guys," [Johnny] said, his eyes glowing, after I had read the part about them riding into sure death because they were gallant. "They remind me of Dally."

"Dally?" I said, startled. "Shoot, he ain't got any more manners than I do. And you saw how he treated those girls the other night. Soda's more like them Southern boys."

"Yeah... in the manners bit, and the charm, too, I guess," Johnny said slowly, "but one night I saw Dally gettin' picked up by the fuzz, and he kept real cool and calm the whole time. They was gettin' him for breakin' out the windows in the school building, and it was Two-Bit who did that. And Dally knew it. But he just took the sentence without battin' an eye or even denyin' it. That's gallant."

In Chapter 5 of The Outsiders, Ponyboy recites a poem - Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost - to Johnny. The poem talks about how everything, especially something beautiful, eventually fades away or dies.

"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."

Johnny later tells Ponyboy to "stay gold." Knowing his allusion to Robert Frost's poem, what does Johnny mean when he tells Ponyboy to "stay gold"?