AtomicQuote

Jim Carroll Quotes

Poverty of young men alone behind thestairways, who practicealchemy inside bottle caps, who knowthe altruism of a last syringe.

Jim Carroll

Poverty of young men alone behind thestairways, who practicealchemy inside bottle caps, who knowthe altruism of a last syringe.

Tags: heroin, in midtown again, needles, poetry, sharing

They're fucking up minds they do not own.

Jim Carroll

They're fucking up minds they do not own.

About Author
James Dennis Carroll (August 1, 1949 – September 11, 2009) was an American author, poet, and punk musician. Carroll was best known for his 1978 autobiographical work The Basketball Diaries, which inspired a 1995 film of the same title that starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll, and his 1980 song "People Who Died" with the Jim Carroll Band.

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...

Jim Carroll

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...

I wind up stretched across the couch

Jim Carroll

I wind up stretched across the couch

Tags: drugs, fear of dreaming, heroin, maybe i m amazed, poetry

Little kids shoot marbleswhere the branches break the sun into graceful shafts of light…I just want to be pure.

Jim Carroll

Little kids shoot marbleswhere the branches break the sun into graceful shafts of light…I just want to be pure.

It’s all as if words, phrases, images, syntax were small glass beads from a necklace which was wrenched from some neck and spilled on the floor and down the sides of sofa cushions and armchairs and un...

Jim Carroll

It’s all as if words, phrases, images, syntax were small glass beads from a necklace which was wrenched from some neck and spilled on the floor and down the sides of sofa cushions and armchairs and un...

I'll Die For Your Sins If You Live For mine.

Jim Carroll

I'll Die For Your Sins If You Live For mine.

Tags: sins

On a whim, he stopped and bought a watch from a sidewalk vendor. Normally, Billy could not abide keeping time, especially when it was attached to one’s body. Time was like a relentlessly needy lapdog...

Jim Carroll

On a whim, he stopped and bought a watch from a sidewalk vendor. Normally, Billy could not abide keeping time, especially when it was attached to one’s body. Time was like a relentlessly needy lapdog...

Is there such a thing as public good? That's all I'm asking. I mean, is your good the same as my good? I doubt that seriously. So, if we do not agree on a common sense of good, then how can there be a...

Jim Carroll

Is there such a thing as public good? That's all I'm asking. I mean, is your good the same as my good? I doubt that seriously. So, if we do not agree on a common sense of good, then how can there be a...

Violence is so terribly fast . . . the most perverse thing about the movies is the way they portray it in slow motion, allowing it to be something sensuous . . . the viewer's lips slightly wet as the...

Jim Carroll

Violence is so terribly fast . . . the most perverse thing about the movies is the way they portray it in slow motion, allowing it to be something sensuous . . . the viewer's lips slightly wet as the...

I'm beginning to have second thoughts regarding the validity of Gloria's theory that I can overcome my heroin addiction by the simple process of shooting up vast quantities of speed with her twenty ti...

Jim Carroll

I'm beginning to have second thoughts regarding the validity of Gloria's theory that I can overcome my heroin addiction by the simple process of shooting up vast quantities of speed with her twenty ti...

Tags: jim carroll

That, I realized, is the great beauty of dreams: the devil may inevitably find a way to jerk you off, but you can always wake up before he makes you cum.

Jim Carroll

That, I realized, is the great beauty of dreams: the devil may inevitably find a way to jerk you off, but you can always wake up before he makes you cum.

I think of poetry and how I see it as just a raw block of stone ready to be shaped, that way words are never a horrible limit to me, just tools to shape.

Jim Carroll

I think of poetry and how I see it as just a raw block of stone ready to be shaped, that way words are never a horrible limit to me, just tools to shape.

I sleep on a tar roof scream my songs into lazy floods of stars…a white powder paddles through blood and heart and the returns pure and easy…This city is on my side.

Jim Carroll

I sleep on a tar roof scream my songs into lazy floods of stars…a white powder paddles through blood and heart and the returns pure and easy…This city is on my side.

I love this mansion, though it is too many windows

Jim Carroll

I love this mansion, though it is too many windows

Poetry can unleash a terrible fear. I suppose it is the fear of possibilities, too many possibilities, each with its own endless set of variations. It's like looking too closely and too long into a mi...

Jim Carroll

Poetry can unleash a terrible fear. I suppose it is the fear of possibilities, too many possibilities, each with its own endless set of variations. It's like looking too closely and too long into a mi...

Whiteness is the color of death, you know, not black. Wetness is life, the breeder and shaper of life. In the beginning the sun was black. So all light was absorbed before it had a chance to return. A...

Jim Carroll

Whiteness is the color of death, you know, not black. Wetness is life, the breeder and shaper of life. In the beginning the sun was black. So all light was absorbed before it had a chance to return. A...

Tags: dreams, poetry

Back then, Billy imagined that drops of rain were unanswered prayers falling back to earth.

Jim Carroll

Back then, Billy imagined that drops of rain were unanswered prayers falling back to earth.

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...

Jim Carroll

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...

You're growing up. And rain sort of remains on the branches of a tree that will someday rule the Earth. And it's good that there is rain. It clears the month of your sorry rainbow expressions, and it...

Jim Carroll

You're growing up. And rain sort of remains on the branches of a tree that will someday rule the Earth. And it's good that there is rain. It clears the month of your sorry rainbow expressions, and it...

Tags: poem