Basketball Diaries Quotes

Nervous means you want to play. Scared means you don't want to play.

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

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.

they're fucking up minds they do not own.

I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms. And the tribe of cartoonists. And the tribe of chronic masturbators. And the tribe of teenage boys. And the tribe of small-town kids. And the tribe of Pacific Northwesterners. And the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers. And the tribe of poverty. And the tribe of funeral-goers. And the tribe of beloved sons. And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends. It was a huge realization. And that's when I knew that I was going to be okay.

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.

Now I got these diaries that have the greatest hero a writer needs, this crazy fucking New York.

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.

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.

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.

I think it’s like the Cheese Touch in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The kids in that story were afraid they’d catch the cooties if they touched the old moldy cheese on the basketball court. At Beecher Prep, I’m the old moldy cheese.

And I lost my virgin veins.

In my case, this meant identifying with male protagonists, with the Jim of the almost womanless Lord Jim and Jim Carroll’s self-anointing stud junkie in The Basketball Diaries and with Pip rather than Estella in Great Expectations, and all the grail seekers and ring beaters and western explorers and chasers and conquerors and haters of women and inhabitants of worlds where women were absent.

I think it's like the Cheese Touch in 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid'. The kids in that story were afraid they'd catch the cooties if they touched the old moldy cheese on the basketball court. At Beecher Prep, I'm the old moldy cheese.

Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms. And the tribe of cartoonists. And the tribe of chronic masturbators. And the tribe of teenage boys. And the tribe of small-town kids. And the tribe of Pacific Northwesterners. And the tribe of tortilla chips-and-salsa lovers. And the tribe of poverty. And the tribe of funeral-goers. And the tribe of beloved sons. And the tribe of boys who really missed their best friends. It was a huge realization. And that’s when I knew that I was going to be okay.

Patton inspected the cargo with the possessive eye of a man who intended to use every last bullet, bomb, and basketball shoe. When he asked a young quartermaster captain how the loading was proceeding, the officer replied, “I don’t know, but my trucks are getting on all right.” Patton took a moment to scribble in his diary: “That is the answer. If everyone does his part, these seemingly impossible tasks get done. When I think of the greatness of my job and realize that I am what I am, I am amazed, but on reflection, who is as good as I am? I know of no one.” It was a fair self-assessment by a man who had spent the past four decades preparing for this moment,

He's got a cat tied to the seat of the toilet and a bubble bath all set for someone to jump in. I excused myself for a second and went over to the kitchenette and popped a couple of Valiums. I was already loaded on junk but I could see this was going to be strictly from fruit. When I got back in the john he was already naked and in the tub frosted in bubbles . . . the poor cat was still chained to the john seat, yelping away. The guy laid his plan on me. He wants me to whip the cat dead after I first piss on him in his bubble bath, then when the cat has had it I'm to jerk off into his mouth while he's still in the tub. Out from under the bubbles he hands me a whip, a tiny cat size whip with leather fringes laced with broken ends of razors. ... I untied the cat, he tried to get up and stop me, I punched his chump face, he landed back on his ass in the tub and I gave him the whip across the chest . . . a nasty wound. . . . I grabbed his hair, opened his mouth and pissed in it . . . he spit it out, the piss mixing with the blood oozing from his lip from the punch and he let out a slow motion yell at the sting of urine dripping into the cuts on his chest. He sank under water to cool the burn, I rifled his wallet for sixty bucks, picked up the kitty and split.

No! It’s just for boys! It’s basketball!

My parents didn’t seem to notice, but my sister sure did. She was nice about it, not by asking what was wrong, but hanging out with me while I wasted time playing video games. When I woke up, I acted sick. My mom bought it for a little bit, at least enough to skip homeroom. But when she caught me out of bed and playing basketball in my driveway, she took me straight to school. She barely gave me time to get

Do you play basketball?” “Can you reach that for me?” “Where do you buy your clothes?” “How tall are you. . .really?” “You must hit your head, a lot.” “You have a booger in your nose.” And when you trip, somebody somewhere always yells, “Timber!!!” Now being taller than everybody else does have its perks. Like, I always get the best apples from the top of the tree. And when I’m tired, I can rest my elbows on people’s square heads.

Whoa.” “But, nobody knows who he or she is. It could be anybody. Who knows. . .it could be you.” “Seriously?!!!” “Yup,” Steve said. Man, I’ve never been chosen for anything before. Like, when we play basketball in gym class, nobody ever picks me to be on their team. I think it’s because I run like a hundred-year-old man. . . Or maybe it’s because I keep tripping over my own feet. . .and legs. . .and arms.

Enderman. You know, people don’t know much about Endermen. I think it’s because we’re naturally the strong, silent type. But because we’re so mysterious, people say some really crazy stuff about us. Like, people think that Enderman play basketball because we’re tall and have long arms. But it’s not true. We don’t play basketball. But if we did, we would kick your butts. Ha-Ha! Another thing people say is that we steal people’s stuff. Now, just because we move your block around doesn’t mean we’re stealing it.

My Mom can be so embarrassing. At my basketball game last week, she came to the game dressed as a cheerleader with pom-poms and a sign that said, ‘GO BAKE.’ Clearly, she forgot the letter ‘L’ in my name, and the other team thought that she was telling them to go to the kitchen. Now everyone at school calls me ‘Bake’. Thanks, Mom.  “Your friend Fred is nice,