Quotations

"It's easier to die when you have lived, than it is to die when you haven't. So I say to all young people, go make memories; beautiful memories. Because when the time comes to go, you won't go alone."

— Doc Paskowitz, American surfer and physician, died November 10, 2014

"Death is not a stalker, always looking for us. Death is a scorekeeper tallying up how much we love life and how much we are willing to work for it. We die when we stop living."

— Doc Paskowitz, American surfer and physician, died November 10, 2014

"Poetry is not a code to be broken but a way of seeing with the eyes shut."

— Linda Pastan, American poet, born May 27, 1932

"I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies."

— Boris Pasternak, Russian author and poet, born February 10, 1890

"Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John."

— Boris Pasternak, Russian author and poet, died May 30, 1960

"Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary."

— Boris Pasternak, Russian author and poet, died May 30, 1960

"Art is not to throw light but to be light."

— Kenneth Patchen, American poet, died January 8, 1972

"Dogs with broken legs are shot; men with broken souls write through the night."

— Kenneth Patchen, American poet, born December 13, 1911

"The thing I learned the most from my father is don't wait for tomorrow. Don't say you're gonna do something 'when the kids grow up.' Don't say, 'I'm going to go to Israel once you guys are out of school.' Because he got pancreatic cancer at fifty-two, and he never did any of it. The gift he gave me was a residue of his death. Don't ever wait to satisfy an idea or a hope or a dream."

— Mandy Patinkin, American tenor, born 1952

"I believe there's a common ground in what all gifted writers write. It has to do with their wish to turn darkness into light."

— Mandy Patinkin, American tenor, born 1952

"Death is the only grammatically correct full stop."

— Brian Patten, English poet, born February 7, 1946

"There is so much hate among people, so much contempt inside people who'd like you to think they're moral, that they have to hire prizefighters to do their hating for them. And we do. We get into a ring and act out other people's hates."

— Floyd Patterson, American boxer, born 1935

"I've been knocked down more than any heavyweight champion in history."

— Floyd Patterson, American boxer, born 1935

"When you have millions of dollars, you have millions of friends."

— Floyd Patterson, American boxer, born 1935