Top 15 Patch Adams Quotes

Welcome to my library! Ever since my high school days, books and magazines have been to my mind what friends are in the flesh. Each and every one of these books and articles-- a fraction of the 12,000 volumes that I share my house with-- has contributed to expanding my dream.

I have often found that mental patients who are given love, creativity, and community find the peace that they are reaching out for.

Imagination is an infinite resource that cannot be diminished by overuse or underuse.

Take a close look at the part that "love" plays in your life. Make an inventory of love: people, things, ideas, experiences. Try to live your gratitude.

I think that the loss of the house call has been the biggest blow to the art of medicine in this century. Not only has the patient lost this precious attention, but the physician has not found a replacement for the lost intimacy.

I go to hospitals that have no medicine. You see pain relief in people who haven't had a second of pain relief in months. You see mothers laughing with their dying child. You see hospitals come alive, dancing in the hallways. Food fights! Life! How can anyone convince anybody that life occurred where there was not play?

The strongest thing I do is that I take people on clown trips....And I give them a bunch of clown clothes, and I take them places where people are suffering, and everyone becomes a player. And it's usually instantaneous....We've taken clowns into war, into refugee camps....We start with simple things: blowing up a balloon, blowing bubbles, having a puppet. But it isn't long before they see that the world of play is a gigantic universe...Because it isn't just about play; it's about opening up your life and your being and your ability to connect with people...play connects you instantly with anyone in the world, without language.

I dove into the ocean of gratitude and never found the shore.

I decided that I would only be six qualities: happy, funny, loving, cooperative, creative and thoughtful.

I've tacked up a great statement by Melville, which I don't know by heart, but it's the equivalent of, "If you haven't failed, you haven't tried."

If I plant the idea that you really are a responsible person, that your life and life around you is affected by you, even though you're only one person, life can become very exciting.

People are not their diseases....without touching on the quality of a person's life, their loves, concerns, and fears, we ignore a gigantic area of resource and disease.

Any can do it — BE RADIANT! Make the decision. I want to be an agent of change to a loving world — so I will be radiant.

You know, it's always the same. I've clowned in 81 countries. People hunger for love, and clowning is a trick to get love close. As a clown I can do things that people are too frightened of Love to allow you to do.

The medical professionals are a lot more comfortable calling it "depression" than calling it "loneliness."