Robert Fulghum Quotes

“Nature so works in that everybody gets a turn at getting what they deserve in one way or another.”

“All I Really Need to Know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.”

“Sitting there watching the laundry go around in the dryer, I thought about the round world and hygiene. We’ve made a lot of progress, you know. We used to think that disease was an act of God. Then we figured out it was a product of human ignorance, so we’ve been cleaning up our act-literally-ever since. We’ve been getting the excrement off our hands and clothes and bodies and food and houses”

“Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors. And we teach our kids about that.”

“Ever seen an abacus? You know, those centipedelike things with wooden beads in rows. They’re sold mostly in knickknack import shops, for wall decoration. But, in fact, an abacus is an adding machine, calculator, and computer. On second thought, that’s not quite true. The abacus is just a visual record of the computations going on in the mind of the person using it.”

“And snow- snow is not my enemy, I tell him. Snow is God’s way of telling people to slow down and rest and stay in bed for a day. And besides, snow always solves itself. Mixes with the leaves to form more earth, I tell him.”

“Come over here, we say - to the edge, we say. I want to show you something, we say. We are afraid, they say; it’s very exciting, they say. Come to the edge, we say, use your imagination. And they come. And they look. And we push. And they fly. We to stay and die in our beds. They to go and to die howsoever, inspiring those who come after them to come to their own edge. And fly. ”

“We modern, urban, educated folks yell at traffic and umpires and bills and banks and machines- especially machines. Machines and relatives get most of the yelling.”

“The lion and the giraffe and the wombat and the rest do what they do and are what they are. And somehow manage to make it there in the cage, living the unexamined life. But to be human is to know and care and ask. To keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence hollering, ‘What’s it for?’ at the stones and stars, and making prisons and palaces out of the echoing answers. That’s what we do and that’s what we are. And that’s why a zoo is a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

“He said, ‘Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know’ ‘Sure are,’ I said. ‘Like matches in the hand of a three-year-old. Or automobiles in the hands of a sixteen-year-old. Or faith in God in the mind of a saint or a maniac. Or a nuclear arsenal in the hands of a movie character. Or even jumper cables and batteries in the hands of fools.‘”

“Crayola plus imagination (the ability to create images) - these make for happiness if you are a child. Amazing things, Crayolas. Some petroleum-based wax, some dye, a little binder-not much to them. Until you add the imagination.”

“How would you know it was Halloween or Valentines Day or Mothers Day early enough to do something about it, if merchants didn’t stay on the job? The other group I can count on is kindergarten teachers. They always know about holidays, and when it comes to valentines and other evidence of love, no merchant can compete with them.”

“Without realizing it, we fill important places in each other’s lives. It’s that way with a minister and congregation. Or with the guy at the corner grocery, the mechanic at the local garage, the family doctor, teachers, neighbors, co-workers. Good people, who are always “there,” who can be relied upon in small, important ways. People who teach us, bless us, encourage us, support us, uplift us in the dailiness of life. We never tell them. I don’t know why, but we don’t. And, of course, we fill that role ourselves. There are those who depend on us, watch us, learn from us, take from us. And we never know. Don’t sell yourself short. You may never have proof of your importance, but you are more important than you think.”

“I want to be five years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked up and rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to bed just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back.”

“When you think about it, for sheer bulk there’s more art done with Crayolas than with anything else. There must be billion of sheets of paper in every country in the world, in billions of boxes and closets and attics and cupboards, covered with billions of pictures in crayon. The imagination of the human race poured out like a river.”

“Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditua. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines-by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.”

“It’s the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible.”

“Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away!”

“We even make ourselves up, fusing what we are with what we wish into what we must become. I’m not sure why it must be so, but it is. It helps to know this. Thinking about the grandfather I wish I had prepares me for the grandfather I wish to be, a way of using what I am to shape the best that is to come. It is a preparation.”

“Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life-learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even little seed in the Styrofoam up-they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned-the biggest word of all-LOOK.”