Quotes from The Basketball Diaries

Jim Carroll ·  224 pages

Rating: (25.6K votes)


“It was a dream, not a nightmare, a beautiful dream I could never imagine in a thousand nods. There was a girl next to me who wasn't beautiful until she smiled and I felt that smile come at me in heat waves following, soaking through my body and out my finger tips in shafts of color and I knew somewhere in the world, somewhere, that there was love for me.”
― Jim Carroll, quote from The Basketball Diaries


“Little kids shoot marbles
where the branches break the sun

into graceful shafts of light…
I just want to be pure.”
― Jim Carroll, quote from The Basketball Diaries


“they're fucking up minds they do not own.”
― Jim Carroll, quote from The Basketball Diaries


“To sit in this awful mess and maybe smoke some dope and watch some innocuous shit on a dumb glass tube and feel fine about it and know there's really nothing you have to do, ever, but feel your warm friend's silent content. You don't feel guilty about not fighting a war or carrying signs to protest it either. We've just mastered the life of doing nothing, which when you think about it, may be the hardest thing of all to do.”
― Jim Carroll, quote from The Basketball Diaries


“It was in Central Park near the lake and I watched a weeping willow turn into a giant rooster and fly off. No tree remained. It glided beautifully into the sky, a big blue barnyard. My mind went with it, something all you bald head generals and wheelchair senators could never imagine.”
― Jim Carroll, quote from The Basketball Diaries



About the author

Jim Carroll
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date August 1, 1950
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“His smile is laced with dynamite. "Go to sleep"
"Go to hell."
He works his jaw. Walks to the door. "I'm working on it.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Shatter Me


“I took a bite of cookie and chewed. “Hmmm,” I said, trying not to spit crumbs. “Clear vanilla notes, too-sweet chocolate chips, distinct flavor of brown sugar. A decent cookie, not spectacular. Still, a good-hearted cookie, not pretentious.” I turned to Fang. “What say you?”
“It’s fine.”
Some people just don’t have what it takes to appreciate a cookie.”
― James Patterson, quote from The Angel Experiment


“A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct.”
― Charles Darwin, quote from The Origin of Species


“Some things are not forgiveable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgiveable. It is the most unforgiveable thing in my opinion, and the one thing in which I have never, ever been guilty.”
― Tennessee Williams, quote from A Streetcar Named Desire


“I've done lots of jobs. Right now, I'm a hair collector."

"That's good", said Ishvar tentatively. "What do you have to do as a hair-collector?"

"Collect hair."

"And there is money in that?"

"Oh very big business. There is a great demand for hair in foreign countries."

"What do they do with it? Asked Om skeptical."

"Many different things. Mostly they wear it.Sometimes they paint it in different colors-red, yellow, brown, blue. Foreign women enjoy wearing other people's hair. Men also, especially if they are bald.
In foreign countries they fear baldness. They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things.”
― Rohinton Mistry, quote from A Fine Balance


Interesting books

Stuck in Neutral
(9.3K)
Stuck in Neutral
by Terry Trueman
Desiderata: Words For Life
(819)
Desiderata: Words Fo...
by Max Ehrmann
The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years
(3.3K)
The Day Lasts More T...
by Chingiz Aitmatov
Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir
(3.8K)
Tiger, Tiger: A Memo...
by Margaux Fragoso
Thomas the Rhymer
(3.1K)
Thomas the Rhymer
by Ellen Kushner
The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media
(2.4K)
The Influencing Mach...
by Brooke Gladstone

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.