Jim Carroll Quotes

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 one had to haul around. It barked too much and had no sense of loyalty.

It’s easy to get by on a facade of fancy style, but sooner or later, people are going to see through it. I’m trying to be as honest as possible.

I should have stayed an athlete, body well-tuned, cruising around with my accountant in a Porsche, maroon and chrome.

all right buddah gets a backstage pass but all his friends have to pay

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 scene plays out. Violence is nothing like that. It is lightning fast, chaotic, and totally intangible.

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

I was this Catholic kid, and I never really lost that. I loved the rituals of Catholicism. The mass is a magic ritual; it’s a transubstantiation, and the stations of the cross – I mean, a crown of thorns? Getting whipped? It’s punk rock.

These guys were always saying, ‘The minute you get onstage, it’s great, no matter how much you’re hurting.’ But that didn’t work for me. There were some nights I did not want to get out there.

Our team is good at getting dressed real quick, because we’re the type of team that wears their uniforms all day.

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. And our dreams, then, were empty.

I need a consistency of my moods if there is to be any consistency in my style. I can’t attempt to write always in the hollow flux of desperation and incipient terror.

It’s too late to fall in love with Sharon Tate / But it’s too soon to ask me for the words I want carved on my tomb.

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

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 clears the streets of the silent armies… so we can dance.