Quotes from The Basketball Diaries

“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

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Popular quotes

“کوزیمو طرحی نوشته و منتشر کرده بود که این نام را داشت: "پیش نویس قانون اساسی یک شهر- جمهوری، همرا با اعلامیه حقوق مردان، زنان، کودکان، حیوانات اهلی و وحشیو نیز پرندگان، ماهی ها، حشرات و گیاهان، از بوته های بلند گرفته تا بوته ها و سبزی ها"! اثر بسیار زیبایی بود که می توانست راهنمای هر نوع دولتی باشد؛ ولی کسی آن را جدی نگرفت و به کار نبست.”
― Italo Calvino, quote from The Baron in the Trees

“Something in her expression made Covenant feel that he came from a very poor world, where no one knew or cared about the healing of stoneware pots.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, quote from Lord Foul's Bane

“Blay’s head whipped around to his mate. “Really? You asked my dad?” Qhuinn nodded, then started to smile like a mother fucker. “It’s my one and only shot. So I wanted to follow protocol.”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover at Last

“Du, Erde, warst auch diese Nacht beständig
Und atmest neu erquickt zu meinen Füßert,
Beginnest schon mit Lust mich zu umgeben,
Du regst und rührst ein kräftiges Beschließen,
Zum höchsten Dasein immerfort zu streben.

This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken,
And now thou breathest new-refreshed before me,
And now beginnest, all thy gladness granting,
A vigorous resolution to restore me,
To seek that highest life for which I'm panting.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quote from Faust

“Eleven thousand five hundred and fifty-one years old, and yes, I feel every day of it. (Acheron)
Wow, I had no idea. Hell, I didn’t even know we had people back then. (Nick)
Yeah, I was part of the original Bedrock crew who worked in the quarry on the back of dinosaurs and ran with the Flintstones. Barney Rubble was short, but he played a good game of stone-knuckle. (Acheron)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Night Embrace

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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.