Robert Fulghum Quotes

“You may never have proof of your importance but you are more important than you think. There are always those who couldn't do without you. The rub is that you don't always know who.”

— Robert Fulghum

“Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found.”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

It wasn't in books. It wasn't in a church. What I needed to know was out there in the world.

— Robert Fulghum

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.

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over?”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.”

— Robert Fulghum

“So you drive as far as you can, even when you can clearly read the sign. You want to think you are exempt, that it doesn't apply to you. But it does. Life is still a dead end. And we still have a hard time believing it”

— Robert Fulghum

“Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. There is too much evidence to the contrary.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“Alice's robes were seasonal. She hadn't exactly planned
it that way, but that's how it evolved. In winter there was a long,
warm, deep purple terry-cloth robe. In spring she changed to a new
blue-and-white cotton kimono. In summer there was a white chenille
bathrobe with a pattern on it, and in the fall she wore a cotton robe her
husband had bought her as a surprise gift. They were useful, practical
garments, but when she thought about it, she realized she wore them as
much for the feelings and memories they evoked as much as their physical
comfort. When I told her I thought her robes had become like temple
garments, she smiled,Yes.”

— Robert Fulghum

“Imagination is better than knowledge.”

— Robert Fulghum

“Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.”

— Robert Fulghum

“Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., the summer I turned”

— Robert Fulghum

“Anything can happen. The great banana peel of existence is always on the floor somewhere.”

— Robert Fulghum

For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I'm grumpy or mad, I'll realize that I've not been paying attention to my soul and I've not been following my best routine.

— Robert Fulghum

Only now have I finally realized that my life has been an unending field trip. And I have tried hard not to be a tourist. But to be an adventurer, a traveler, an explorer, a learner, and a pilgrim.

— Robert Fulghum

Arguing whether or not a God exists is like fleas arguing whether or not the dog exists. Arguing over the correct name for God is like fleas arguing over the name of the dog. And arguing over whose notion of God is correct is like fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

— Robert Fulghum

“If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses, and form dandelion societies and all that. But, they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of do what they please. So we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity”

— Robert Fulghum

“These are the things I learned: 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. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon, and, when you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

“Do you ever go off with a long grocery list and come home from the store with a bunch of different stuff? And somebody in the family unsacks the groceries and wants to know why you got this and didn't get that and just where is the whatever? And you want to say, 'Well, just be glad I came back, okay?' And the unpacker says, 'Well, next time bring what's on the list.'”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

Even the finest workman needs to inspect his work critically.

— Robert Fulghum

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.

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

“Everything we can imagine becomes real.”

— Robert Fulghum

“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.”

— Robert Fulghum

“Sometimes history knocks at the most ordinary door to see if anyone is home. Sometimes someone is.”

— Robert Fulghum

To look this way is to see. To see is to have vision. To have vision is to understand. To understand is to know. To know is to become. To become is to live fully. To live fully is to matter. And to matter is to become light. And to become light is to be loved. And to be loved is to burn. And to burn is to exist. Off and on.

— Robert Fulghum

“Infinite possibility in all things is a certainty. That pretty much covers theology and philosophy for me.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

An artists job is to see. And to go out in the world and see it firsthand, just as it is; to report with line and words what is seen. To be in the world, not just study about the world, that is the artists task

— Robert Fulghum

“This is an exercise in power - the power of mind over matter. If you don't mind being inadequate, it doesn't matter.”

— Robert Fulghum