"Know this. There's different types of users of junk. You got your rich dilettante square-ass who dabbles now and then and always has enough money to run off to the Riviera if he feels he's fucking around to the danger point. Street junkies hate these pricks, but they're always suckers, and their money makes them tolerable. Then you got your upper-middle-class Westchester preppies... same as the others, basically. What they're good for is opening their mommy and daddy's eyes to this social virus and putting pressure on the government to do something about it. Then there's us street kids. Start fucking around very young, 13 or so... We think we all got it under control and won't get strung out. This rarely works. I'm living proof. But in the end, you just got to see the junk as another 9-to-5 gig. The hours are just a bit more inclined to shadows."

"I got six months in Riker's Island for assault, robbery, resisting arrest, and possession of narcotics. I sweated out a horrible cure and stayed clean the whole stretch, even though it's been easier to get good junk in here than it is on the street. Shit, it's been hard, man. All I've been doing is reading these diaries and wondering how the hell I'm still alive, and even if I care. Suffice to say that I'm finished with the asshole bandits of shower-room rape, and suffice to say that those swine guards won't draw blood from my ankles again. Suffice to say that I've been just thinking about dumb stuff, like what a nice concept it is to have a godmother and a godfather, wondering who my godparents might be. My mom won't visit me here, so I guess I'll just have to wait till I get home to ask."

"Time sure flies when you're young and jerking off."

"I felt dazed, like I just came out of a 4 hour movie I didn't understand."

"All I've been doing is reading this diary wondering how the hell I'm still alive?"

"I was just gonna sniff a bag but one guy says if you're gonna sniff you might as well pop it and another guys says if you gonna pop it you might as well mainline."

"You gotta have presence on the court. Presence like a cheetah rather than a chimp. Sure, they both got it, but Chimpy gotta jump his nuts around to get it. The shy cheetah moves with total nonchalance, stickin' it to them in his sexy, slow strut. Me? I play like a cheetah."

"First, it's a Saturday night thing when you feel cool like a gangster or a rockstar- just something to kill the boredom, you know? They call it a chippie, a small habit. It feels so good, you start doing it on Tuesdays... then Thursdays... then it's got you. Every wise ass punk on the block says it won't happen to them, but it does."

"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."

"When I was young, about eight or so, I tried making friends with God by inviting Him to my house to watch the World Series. He never showed."

"Jim Carroll - Frankie Pinewater, Credited as James Dennis Carroll"

"Brittany Daniel - Blinkie"

"Cynthia Daniel - Winkie"

"Manny Alfaro - Manny"

"Ernie Hudson - Reggie Porter"

"Michael Rapaport - Skinhead"

"Michael Imperioli - Bobby"

"Juliette Lewis - Diane Moody"

"Alexander Chaplin - Bobo"

"Bruno Kirby - Swifty"

"Rory Cooper - Father McNulty"

"Mark Wahlberg - Mickey"

"Patrick McGaw - Neutron"

"James Madio - Pedro"

"Marilyn Sokol - Chanting Woman"

"Lorraine Bracco - Mrs. Carroll"

"Leonardo DiCaprio - Jim Carroll"

"Every punk on the block says it's not going to happen to them... but it does."

"The true story of the death of innocence and the birth of an artist"

"I'll tell you what, if our school was this nice I would go there more than once a week."

"Walter Brennan - Pastor Rosier Pile"

"Erville Alderson - Nate Tomkins"

"Robert Porterfield - Zeb Andrews"

"Pat Flaherty - Sergeant Harry Parsons"

"Joseph Sawyer - Sergeant Early"

"Charles Esmond - German Major"

"David Bruce - Bert Thomas"

"Harvey Stephens - Captain Danforth"

"Charles Trowbridge - Cordell Hull"

"Howard Da Silva - Lem"

"Clem Bevans - Zeke"

"Dickie Moore - George York, Alvin's brother"

"June Lockhart - Rosie York, Alvin's sister"

"Noah Beery Jr. - Buck Lipscomb"

"Ward Bond - Ike Botkin"

"Margaret Wycherly - Mother York"

"Stanley Ridges - Major Buxton"

"George Tobias - "Pusher" Ross"

"Joan Leslie - Gracie Williams"

"Gary Cooper - Alvin C. York"