Jim Carroll Quotes

If I said Jim Carroll would you be insulted?"
-Jessica Citizen- ~ David Rat

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 mirror; soon your features distort, then erupt. You look too closely into your poems, or listen too closely to them as they arrive in whispers, and the features inside you - call it heart, call it mind, call it soul - accelerate out of control. They distort and they erupt, and it is one strange pain. You realize, then, that you can't attempt breaking down too many barriers in too short a time, because there are as many horrors waiting to get in at you as there are parts of yourself pushing to break out, and with the same, or more, fevered determination. ~ Jim Carroll

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. ~ Jim Carroll

Conscience is no more than the dead speaking to us. ~ 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 times daily. ~ Jim Carroll

All right buddah gets a backstage pass but all his friends have to pay ~ Jim Carroll

they're fucking up minds they do not own. ~ 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. And our dreams, then, were empty. ~ 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 one had to haul around. It barked too much and had no sense of loyalty. ~ Jim Carroll

It always puzzled Billy that so many of his most fond and formative memories took place in winter. The fact was that he never liked this season, except as a young child when falling white flakes were magical, and the sun on the snow-covered baseball fields in the park was the color of light through quartz. ~ 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 it, something all you bald head generals and wheelchair senators could never imagine. ~ 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

He was about to find out that when you open a door with a psychiatrist's name on it, you'd better be prepared to witness exactly how fucked up your life has become. ~ Jim Carroll

I'm just really a wise ass kid getting wiser and I'm going to get even somehow for your dumb hatreds and all them war baby dreams you left in my scarred bed with dreams of bombs falling above that cliff I'm hanging steady to. ~ 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 clears the streets of the silent armies ... so we can dance. ~ Jim Carroll

If you are a parent, if you are an educator, there are very many good and powerful reasons to take children onto the Internet, but you have to be involved with them-you cannot expect government authorities or industry authorities or other people to do your job for you, and that is to help guard your children against some of these things that are occurring out there. ~ Jim Carroll

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

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

Poverty of young men alone behind the
stairways, who practice
alchemy inside bottle caps, who know
the altruism of a last syringe. ~ 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. ~ Jim Carroll

I love this mansion, though it is too many windows
... to open halfway each morning
... to close halfway each night. ~ Jim Carroll

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

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

~ Jim Carroll

I was a Catholic boy, redeemed through pain, not through joy, ~ Jim Carroll

I wind up stretched across the couch
still nodding with Sherlock Holmes
examining our crushed veins ~ Jim Carroll

Nothing in the fact that there was a first moment in time necessitates that an external something is required to bring the universe about at that moment. ~ Sean M. Carroll

I've always loved the underdog characters. ~ Jim O'Heir

Haiti's economy cannot be built by and benefit just a privileged few. It must be built by and benefit all Haitians. ~ Jim Yong Kim

If you say interesting stuff on twitter, people will follow you there. I think Jim Caruso, from MediaFirst, does this well. He's been at every single technology event I've ever attended in Atlanta for the last 10 years. He knows what's going on. He's a technology geek at heart ... And he's on twitter, tweeting about local startups, global technology news, and of course, his own clients. I follow him on twitter. ~ Ben Chestnut

A wonderful place, the mind, but if it has any kind of disappointing failure, it's that it always attempts to put new things into the context of things which are already familiar to it. ~ Jim Butcher

I've been lucky enough to primarily work for myself over the years. ~ Jim Courier

The best advice I got throughout my career was understanding what my current managers' pains and challenges are - it's not always just about hitting the number. ~ Jim McDonough

You can fail at what you don't love so you might as well take a chance on doing what you do love. ~ Jim Carrey

I feel the American's eyes on me, looking as though I'm more than an amputee, a number, a chore. He crosses over to me, his strides large, a broad smile on his lips. "Veda? Did I say your name right?" "Yes, Doctor." "Call me Jim. Please." His left hand in his pocket, he holds his right hand out to me. As though we're equals. "Thank you, Doctor - I mean - just Jim," I say. He chuckles. "Haven't done anything yet." He has. No older man ever invited me to shake hands. No other adult ever asked me to call them by name. He even said "please" although I'm a patient. ~ Padma Venkatraman

How long is forever?
Sometimes just one second ~ Lewis Carroll

On MySpace ... the whole demographic of the stand-up comedy fan has changed. It's like an indie band thing. People think they've discovered you. ~ Jim Gaffigan

The construction of meaning is a fundamentally individual, subjective, creative enterprise, and an intimidating responsibility. ~ Sean Carroll

You are ready and able to do beautiful things in this world, and as you walk through those doors today, you will only have two choices: love or fear. Choose love, and don't ever let fear turn you against your playful heart. ~ Jim Carrey

I have to say, self-servingly, I downloaded my own comics. I downloaded 'Batman: Hush.' ~ Jim Lee

Heroism isn't a one time thing: Live Heroically. ~ Jim MacLaren

You'll find my power comes from within ... and is a force to be reckoned with. ~ Jim Starlin

The bottom line is that five million low-income Americans working full time for minimum wage, deserve a raise. ~ Jim Clyburn

I don't write my standup on paper or anything; but I just organically do it on stage, have an idea, chat it up a little bit. I'm keeping notes. I'm trying to keep up with this world and try to bring out a special every year. ~ Jim Jefferies

It's not how you start that's important, but how you finish! ~ Jim George

The saddest moment in a child's life is not when he learns that Santa Claus isn't real, it's when he learns that Vince Russo is. ~ Jim Cornette

Say what you have to say as succinctly as possible. Once you have made your point, stop. Anything that comes after is superfluous. ~ Jim Vuksic

Don't let your silly dreams fall in between the crack of the bed and the wall. ~ Jim James

And since when had I become the guy that things happened to ten years ago? ~ Jim Butcher

I can't imagine being a woman in the world of acting, like where you age starts to weigh you down - you go from being attractive to where they [directors] decided you're out ... I feel like with stand-up comedy, it doesn't matter if I've gotten fatter. ~ Jim Jefferies

Whatever a writer gets paid for his book, it's never enough. I think that's true. It's hard work. But in the end, you wrote a book. It's something real and tangible that sits on a shelf forever. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing. ~ Jim Rohn

Murphy," I hissed. "Are you absolutely sure about this hair? That it belongs to Kravos?" If it didn't, the doll wouldn't do diddly to the sorcerer, unless I managed to throw it into his eye.
"We're reasonably sure," she whispered, "yes."
"Reasonably sure. Great." But I knelt down, and marked out the circle around me, then another around the Ken doll, and wrought my spell. ~ Jim Butcher

In order to do more. I've got to be more. ~ Jim Rohn

One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention ~ Jim Rohn

Has racial justice improved? Have we moved on from Reconstruction and Jim Crow? Been lifted by Martin and the Civil Rights Act of 1964? It seems that whenever we take two steps forward, we take a step back . . . ~ Mark M. Bello

Don't ever try to be normal because it's the first symptom of a terminal disease. As soon as you feel the need to be normal coming on, get the antidote.
...
Just make sure you're living your life; don't let normal pretend to be you. ~ Jonathan Carroll

I tend to stay up late, not because I'm partying but because it's the only time of the day when I'm alone and don't have to be performing. ~ Jim Carrey

Cars are like rolling diaries, metal and plastic and paint tableaux of the last ten years of their drivers' lives ... every dent, every drooping slice of chrome, has a story behind it. ~ Jim Atkinson

The Agile Project Management principles and framework encourage learning and adapting as an integral part of delivering value to customers. ~ Jim Highsmith

Smiling babies should actually be categorized by the pharmaceutical industry as a powerful antidepressant. ~ Jim Gaffigan

My kids love going to movies, and I enjoy taking naps during those movies. Sure, I'm not thrilled to pay twelve dollars to take a nap, yet it always seems worth it. I'm not even concerned that I'm missing the film, because I know I'll have another dozen times to see it at home when my kids watch it on Netflix or force me to buy it on iTunes for a thousand dollars. ~ Jim Gaffigan

Well, I've been down so Goddamn long,
that it looks like up to me. ~ Jim Morrison

I feel all the religions should be able to co-exist if the various factions would be willing to respect and learn from each other's faiths. ~ Susan Carroll

Then a neighbor, Mr Smith, had a dairy cow and an couple bulls. He showed me how to bluff a bull. ~ Jim Fowler

The world can be divided between people who can get a waiter's attention and those who can't. ~ Jonathan Carroll

I'm bald, blind and pale. I'm like a gigantic recessive gene. ~ Jim Gaffigan

I didn't follow her right away. She didn't look back. Stab. Twist. God, I love being a wizard. ~ Jim Butcher

You don't have to run faster than the bear to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you. ~ Jim Butcher

Real persuasion comes from putting more of you into everything you say. Words have an effect. Words loaded with emotion have a powerful effect. ~ Jim Rohn

Outside of my work as a comic book creator and co-publisher, I'm an avid gamer. ~ Jim Lee

My father used to brag that I wasn't a ham, I was the whole pig. ~ Jim Carrey