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

“She hated me once, but it’s not hate I see in her eyes now. Not even fear. It’s love. I don’t deserve her love, but I have it anyway. I don’t deserve her at all, but she’s mine. Beautiful, smart. And so fucking strong.”
― Annika Martin, quote from Prisoner


“Adam strokes my head, my face, he kisses my tears.

We are blessed.


Let them all go.


The sound of a bird flying low across the garden. Then nothing. Nothing. A cloud passes. Nothing again. Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me.

Moments.

All gathering towards this one.”
― Jenny Downham, quote from Now is Good


“if events are random, we are not in control, and if we are in control of events, they are not random. There is therefore a fundamental clash between our need to feel we are in control and our ability to recognize randomness.”
― Leonard Mlodinow, quote from The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives


“Dragons didn’t fool around when it came to protecting things that they acquired—be it gold, gems, or a monster’s body parts.”
― Lisa Shearin, quote from The Grendel Affair


“Learning to understand those you hate and fear is harder. I”
― Kim Harrison, quote from The Witch With No Name


Interesting books

Bonds of Justice
(16.5K)
Bonds of Justice
by Nalini Singh
Religion and Science
(2.4K)
Religion and Science
by Bertrand Russell
CryoBurn
(11K)
CryoBurn
by Lois McMaster Bujold
Never to Sleep
(3.2K)
Never to Sleep
by Rachel Vincent
Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One
(3.4K)
Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilli...
by Sharon Lathan
Everyone Burns
(607)
Everyone Burns
by John Dolan

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.