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" I love kids that come to shows, little kids coming up to you with braces; like, some kid came up to me in a parking lot outside a show in Santa Cruz - he was about 14 or 15 - and he said, 'Y'know, I love 'The Basketball Diaries,' but I hope your next book of poetry isn't gonna be as academic as 'Living at the Movies' was.' "

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

Jim Carroll

Porsche

Accountant

Athlete

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" When I was about 9 years old, man, I realized that the real thing was not only to do what you were doing totally great, but to look totally great while you were doing it. "

" 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... With basketball, you can correct your own mistakes, immediately and beautifully, in midair. "

" 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. "

" I once said a poet has the right to sing as loudly and vocally as he wants to. Most poets should face a rock n' roll audience for one night to keep them honest. "

" I was always the young guy. And when you're successful when you're young, it leads to an arrested adolescence or something, y'know. "

" I do believe that a poet would possess a stronger intuitive sense of phrasing with a rock song. There is a way to tap into the emotions of an audience simply by the cross of a certain phrase, even a single word, against a certain chord. "

" It's always been the same, growing up in Manhattan... the idea of living within a giant archer's target... for use by the bad Russia bowman with the atomic arrows. "

" Artists have nothing to do with the deranged, vaguely connected actions of a few celebrated nutcases. "

" I can't sing that well, but when punk-rock came along, it changed all that. "

" Rock and roll kind of screwed up my voice poetically. I found myself having this 'Beat' voice in my poems. It was like this self-fulfilled prophecy because everybody was calling me this rock poet, this Beat poet. "

Jim Carroll

Voice

Myself