Robert Fulghum Quotations

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world it is best to hold hands and stick together.

It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.

I believe it is in my nature to dance by virtue of the beat of my heart, the pulse of my blood and the music in my mind.

Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts.

My goal now is to dance all the dances as long as I can, and then to sit down contented after the last elegant tango some sweet night and pass on because there wasn't another dance left in me.

If you want an interesting party sometime, combine cocktails and a fresh box of crayons for everyone.

Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.

Play fair. Don't hit people. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.

Children are sent to school to be civilized, to learn to be part of the social enterprise.

You are free to give life meaning, whatever meaning you want to give it.

All I really need to know... I learned in kindergarten.

I fear the boredom that comes with not learning and not taking chances.

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

I've always thought anyone can make money. Making a life worth living, that's the real test.

Share everything. Don't take things that aren't yours. Put things back where you found them.

The winding down of summer puts me in a heavy philosophical mood.

I've always made a clear distinction between making a life and making a living.

Any fool can make enough money to survive. It's another thing to keep yourself consistently entertained. It's a lot of work, and a lot of fun, to make a life.

I think my writing is part of my ministry.

I don't think there is a hidden purpose to the universe that you have to puzzle out.

To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence, hollering, 'What's it for?'

My secret agenda is to convey my values to my kids.

The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.

I talk about very serious human affairs but with a lightness of heart.

I wanted to be a citizen of the world but not in a superficial way.

Share everything. Don't take things that aren't yours. Put things back where you found them.

Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.

We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be.

Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the water of adversity and grief.

When you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts

I was 23 when I came to Bellingham in 1960 - from Mars, they must have thought. I've always had a very sentimental feeling about the importance of that first ministry in my life.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - look.

I'd like to speak a foreign language well enough to get the jokes. I'd like to talk with Socrates, and watch Michelangelo sculpt David. I'd like to see the world as it was a million years ago and a million years hence.

The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence. The grass is greenest where it is watered.

To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level.

I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.

Then he read the words of the scroll slowly, first in Japanese and then carefully translated into English: 'There is really nothing you must be. And there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have. And there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However. It helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet. . . .' 'Whatever, there are consequences. Nobody is exempt,' said the master.

What I notice is that every adult or child I give a new set of Crayolas to goes a little funny. The kids smile, get a glazed look on their faces, pour the crayons out, and just look at them for a while....The adults always get the most wonderful kind of sheepish smile on their faces--a mixture of delight and nostalgia and silliness. And they immediately start telling you about all their experiences with Crayolas.

Think what a better world it would be if we all-the whole world-had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess. And it is still true, no matter how old you are-when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

If you do not join the dancing you will feel foolish. So why not dance? And i will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. if you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there.

And good neighbors make a huge difference in the quality of life. I agree.

It’s harder to talk about, but what I really, really, really want for Christmas is just this: I want to be 5 years old again for an hour. I want to laugh a lot and cry a lot. I want to be picked or rocked to sleep in someone’s arms, and carried up to be just one more time. I know what I really want for Christmas: I want my childhood back. People who think good thoughts give good gifts.

And I’m not confused about the lack of, or the need for, imagination in low or high places. We could do better we must do better. There are far worse things to drop on people than crayolas.

Remember, most of us got something for nothing the first time just by showing up here at birth. Now we have to qualify.

to understand our love they'd have to turn the world upside down

Now Everybody has some secret goals in life...Sometimes you can get what you want and what you need at the sames time.

I and you-We are infinate, rich, large, contradictory, living, breathing miracles-free human beings, children of God and the everlasting universe. That's what we do.

The point is that getting married for lust or money or social status or even love is usually trouble. The point is that marriage is a maze into which we wander - a maze that is best got through with a great companion.

If you notice phrases, ideas, and anecdotes that closely resemble those that appear elsewhere in my writing, it's not a matter of sloppy editing. I'm repeating myself. I'm reshuffling words in the hope that just once I might say something exactly right. And I'm still wrestling with dilemmas that are not easily resolved or easily dismissed. I run at them again and again because I am not finished with them. Any may never be. Work-in- progress on a life-in-progress is what my writing is about. And some progress in the work is enough to keep it going on.

I get tired of hearing it's a crummy world and that people are no damned good. What kind of talk is that? I know a place in Payette, Idaho, where a cook and a waitress and a manager put everything they've got into laying a chicken-fried steak on you.

You will continue to read stories of crookedness and corruption - of policemen who lie and steal, doctors who reap where they do not sew, politicians on the take. Don't be misled. They are news because they are the exceptions.

Always trust your fellow man. And always cut the cards. Always trust God. And always build your house on high ground. Always love thy neighbor. And always pick a good neighborhood to live in.

And sure, I know if you eat this way you'll die. So? If you don't eat this way you're still going to die. Why not die happy?

As one old gentleman put it, " Son, I don't care if you're stark nekkid and wear a bone in your nose. If you kin fiddle, you're all right with me. It's the music we make that counts.

The gift was not large as money goes, and my need was not great, but the spirit of the gift is beyond price and leaves me blessed and in debt.

The Indian danced on alone. The crowd clapped up the beat. The Indian danced with a chair. The crowd went crazy. The band faded. The crowd cheered. The Indian held up his hands for silence as if to make a speech. Looking at the band and then the crowd, the Indian said, "Well, what're you waiting for? Let's DANCE.

Liberation, I guess, is everybody getting what they think they want, without knowing the whole truth. Or in other words, liberation finally amounts to being free from things we don't like in order to be enslaved by things we approve of. Here's to the eternal tandem.

Just when you thought that you already learned the way how to live, life changes - and you're left the same as you begun.

But love may have to be left off the exam. Most of us will never learn.

The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature’s imperfect but tenacious survivors.

Speed and efficiency do not always increase the quality of life.

You feel like an ant contemplating Chicago.

Clean up your own mess.

I believe in dancing.

I do not want to know what you will hope for. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle. As the wagon driver said when they came to a long, hard hill: ‘Them that’s going on with us, get out and push. Them that ain’t, get out of the way’.

A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.

There is nothing in your budget for joy. No books, no flowers, no music, not even a cold beer. And there is nothing in your budget to give away to someone else. We don’t help people who don’t have better values than you do.

Imagination is more important than information. Einstein said that, and he should know. And they come. And they look. And we push. And they fly. We to stay and die on our beds. They to go and die howsoever, yet inspiring those who come after them to find their own edge. And fly.

Why is love easy? I don’t know. And the raccoons don’t say.

But it does no good--solves nothing--to distance myself from the front lines of human need by using the mail as a safe shelter. I believe that serving the best ends of humanity means getting out in the middle of it just as it is, not staying home writing checks and thinking hopeful thoughts. The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are. And you're damned right that's idealistic. No apology. When idealism goes into the trash as junk mail, we're finished.

Once you know where the roller coaster is going, are you in for the ride?

If you tell people you talk to God, they'll think you're religious, but if you say God talks to you, it's ten to one they'll think you're crazy.

It is the chair in honor of all those who, however competently, embrace the impossible. Sit in that chair someday.

Above all, if what you've done is stupid, but it works, it ain't stupid.

The heart will turn to a prune if love is always by the numbers. How will you know if someone really loves you if they only meet your expectations and not your needs?

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.

If only the scientific experts could come up with something to get it out of our minds. One cup of fixit fizzle that will lift the dirt from our lives, soften our hardness, protect our inner parts, improve our processing, reduce our yellowing and wrinkling, improve our natural color, and make us sweet and good.

The name is not important anymore - it's the tone that counts. I feel like an old dog I know. He will come to any name you call him, just so long as your demeanor carries with it the promise of affection and food

Desire is the intangible quality that has more impact on success than talent, education, or IQ. You can't see desire, but you can feel its presence, and see its results in the lives of successful people.

All of these are names given me by other people, but not names I would have given myself. My name is not mine, it's theirs. It's a series of costumes put on my life by other people.

Everyone has doors in the living room of their lives that they assume are locked. Doors that lead to artistic expression. People say "I have no talent -- I can't dance or sing or paint or write poetry or play an instrument." More often than not the doors are not locked, just closed. One may turn the handle, open the door and pass through into a larger life space.

Almost anything can be dealt with if people are of good will and light hearts and strong values.

Never forget that music is too important to be left entirely in the hands of professionals.

If you can't find the exact quote you want, make it up.

The kindergarten children are confident in spirit, infinite in resources, and eager to learn. Everything is still possible.

If someone were to ask me whether I believed in God, or saw God, or had a particular relationship with God, I would reply that I don't separate God from my world in my thinking. I feel that God is everywhere. That's why I never feel separated from God or feel I must seek God, any more than a fish in the ocean feels it must seek water. In a sense, God is the "ocean" in which we live.

The best feelings in your life come when you start feeling good after you've been feeling just awful

Weddings seem to be magnets for mishap and for whatever craziness lurks in family closets. In more ways than one, weddings bring out the ding-dong on everybody involved.

I love this child. Red-haired - patient and gentle like her mother - fey and funny like her father. When she giggles I can hear him when he and I were young. I am part of this child. It may be only because we share genes and that therefore smell familiar to each other.... It may be that a part of me lives in her in some important way.... But for now, it's jelly beans and 'Old MacDonald' that unite us.

It's not that I'm not grateful for all this attention. It's just that fame and fortune ought to add up to more than fame and fortune.

If we could just figure out how to have more fun at it, maybe more of us would join the ranks of those who seek after justice and mercy.

Everything we can imagine becomes real.

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.

Doing a straight-forward, clear-cut task that has a beginning and an end balances out the complexity-without-end that often vexes the rest of my life. Sacred simplicity.

Now everybody has some secret goals in life.

All I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten. Share everything ... Don't hit people ... Clean up your own mess ...