"Somewhere in the middle of My Dinner With Andre, Andre Gregory wonders aloud if it's not possible that the 1960s were the last decade when we were all truly alive — that since then we've sunk into a bemused state of self-hypnosis, placated by consumer goods and given the illusion of excitement by television. Walking out of Four Friends, I had some of the same thoughts. This movie brings the almost unbelievable contradictions of that decade into sharp relief, not as nostalgia or as a re-creation of times past, but as a reliving of all of the agony and freedom of the weirdest ten years any of us is likely to witness. … The movie is ambitious. It wants to take us on a tour of some of the things that happened in the 1960s, and some of the ways four midwestern kids might have responded to them. It also wants to be a meditation on love, and on how love changes during the course of a decade. … The wonder is not that Four Friends covers so much ground, but that it makes many of its scenes so memorable that we learn more even about the supporting characters than we expect to. … this is a movie that remembers times past with such clarity that there are times it seems to be making it all up. Did we really say those things? Make those assumptions? Live on the edge of what seemed to be a society gone both free and mad at once? Some critics have said the people and events in this movie are not plausible. I don't know if they're denying the movie's truth, or arguing that from a 1980s point of view the '60s were just a bad dream. Or a good one."

"I swear to God, Mr. Lucas, when I hear music something happens to me and I either have to move, or scream my head off or something. Something's in my blood, sir, and I don't know what it is, but I know that if I can't dance I'd die."

"These middle class minds! They don't know what passion is — what ecstasy is! What it's like to be possessed! I'm going to be a famous dancer, I am, I just know it."

"Without style you're dead ducks, kiddos."

"James Leo Herlihy - Mr. Carnahan"

"Illeana Douglas – Roberta Allsworth"

"Steve Buscemi – Seymour"

"Brad Renfro – Josh"

"They're high school graduates, and the world's got hell to pay!"

"Thora Birch – Enid"

"Scarlett Johansson – Rebecca"

"Accentuate the negative."

"Cynthia Daniel - Winkie"

"Brittany Daniel - Blinkie"

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

"Manny Alfaro - Manny"

"Rory Cooper - Father McNulty"

"Bruno Kirby - Swifty"

"Alexander Chaplin - Bobo"

"Mark Wahlberg - Mickey"

"Marilyn Sokol - Chanting Woman"

"James Madio - Pedro"

"Juliette Lewis - Diane Moody"

"Patrick McGaw - Neutron"

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

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

"Leonardo DiCaprio - Jim Carroll"

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

"Michael Imperioli - Bobby"

"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."

"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."

"Lorraine Bracco - Mrs. Carroll"

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"Michael Rapaport - Skinhead"

"Ernie Hudson - Reggie Porter"

"Zsa Zsa Gabor - Herself"

"Buddy Ebsen - Barnaby Jones (final film role)"

"Leann Hunley - Miss Arlington"

"Robert Easton - Mayor Jasper"

"Linda Carlson - Aunt Pearl Bodine"

"Dolly Parton - Herself"

"Kevin Connolly - Morgan Drysdale"

"Cloris Leachman - Daisy May "Granny" Moses"