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

“The baby was almost certainly one year old. They knew this because of the red rosette pinned to her front, which read, 1!

"Or rather," said Charles Maxim, "the child is either one year old or she has come first in a competition. I believe babies are rarely keen participants in competitive sport. Shall we therefore assume it is the former?”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“I think my mate may be mentally retarded, either that or she has a severe inner ear imbalance.”
― Alanea Alder, quote from My Commander


“She took him for granted sometimes. That was the luxury of a long marriage. But she knew that she loved him. She needed him. He was the anchor that kept her from drifting away.”
― Karin Slaughter, quote from Pretty Girls


“Wisdom tells me I’m nothing. But love tells me I’m everything.”
― Scott Westerfeld, quote from Zeroes


“For example, basil is great for curing stomach cramps, and sage is good for anxiety or depression.”
― Mark Edwards, quote from The Magpies


Interesting books

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
(72.4K)
Wild Swans: Three Da...
by Jung Chang
The Awakening / The Struggle
(73.8K)
The Awakening / The...
by L.J. Smith
Thoughtless
(126.8K)
Thoughtless
by S.C. Stephens
The Millennium Trilogy
(40.6K)
The Millennium Trilo...
by Stieg Larsson
Faefever
(80.5K)
Faefever
by Karen Marie Moning
How Green Was My Valley
(12.5K)
How Green Was My Val...
by Richard Llewellyn

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.