Fulghum Robert Quotes & Sayings

Clean up your own mess. — Robert Fulghum

The Sikh gave him the money. When Menon asked for his address so that he could repay the man, the Sikh said that Menon owed the debt to any stranger who came to him in need, as long as he lived. The help came from a stranger and was to be repaid to a stranger. — Robert Fulghum

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

The pig was so earnest. So sincere. So very "there." The pig brought gravity and mythic import to this well-worn fairy tale. — Robert Fulghum

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

Nobody goes "AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" when they sing it. Maybe because it puts the life adventure in such clear and simple terms. The small creature is alive and looks for adventure. Here's the drainpipe
a long tunnel going up toward some light. The spider doesn't even think about it
just goes. Disaster befalls it
rain, flood, powerful foces. And the spider is knocked down and out beyond where it started. Does the spider say, "To hell with that"? No. Sun comes out
clears things up
dries off the spider. And the small creature goes over to the drainpipe and looks up and thinks it really wants to know what is up there. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

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

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. — Robert Fulghum

To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that place.To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of things.To do these things is to make fairy tales come true. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

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

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

Dreams are more powerful than facts. — Robert Fulghum

I think my writing is part of my ministry. — Robert Fulghum

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

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. — 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

You can't always explain everything you do to everybody, you know. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

I know what I really want for Christmas.
I want my childhood back.
Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy. — 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

I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling — Robert Fulghum

Living things have been doing just that for a long, long time. Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors. — Robert Fulghum

I am sometimes amazed at what we did not fully grasp in kindergarten. In the years I was a parish minister I was always taken aback when someone came to me and said. 'I've just come from the doctor and he told me I have only a limited time to live'. I was always tempted to shout 'WHAT? You didn't know? You had to pay a doctor to tell you - at your age? Where were you the week in kingergarten when you got the little cup with the cotton and water and seed? Life happened - remember? A plant grew up and the roots grew down. A miracle. And then a few days later the plant was dead. DEAD. Life is short. Were you asleep that week or home sick or what? — Robert Fulghum

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. — Robert Fulghum

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

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. — Robert Fulghum

Public lives are lived out on the job and in the marketplace, where certain rules, conventions, laws, and social customs keep most of us in line. Private lives are lived out in the presence of family, friends, and neighbors who must be considered and respected even though the rules and proscriptions are looser than what's allowed in public. But in our secret lives, inside our own heads, almost anything goes. — Robert Fulghum

Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts ... — Robert Fulghum

Until you have experienced raccoons mating underneath your bedroom at three in the morning, you have missed one of life's sensational moments. — 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

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

Everything we can imagine becomes real. — Robert Fulghum

Don't sell yourself short. You may never have proof of your importance, but you are more important than you think. — Robert Fulghum

Life will examine us continually to see if we have understood and have practiced what we were taught that first year of school. — Robert Fulghum

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

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

Peace is not something you wish for, it is something you make, something you are, something you do,and something you give away. — Robert Fulghum

Life is. I am. Anything might happen. And I believe I may invest my life with meaning. The uncertainty is a blessing in disguise. If I were absolutely certain about all things, I would spend my life in anxious misery, fearful of losing my way. But since everything and anything are always possible, the miraculous is always nearby and wonders shall never, ever cease. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

Only an open mind still has room for new knowledge. What is outgrown and used up must be discarded to make room for what is yet to be learned. And much of the best thinking is done alone-in deserts, on beaches, in bed, behind closed doors. It is why we say we need to get away-to escape from clutter and busyness-to hear ourselves think. — Robert Fulghum

Life is. I am. Anything might happen. — Robert Fulghum

No. I was an only child. — Robert Fulghum

Infinite possibility in all things is a certainty. That pretty much covers theology and philosophy for me. — Robert Fulghum

When my neighbor walks the dogs, he performs a ritual act of sacer simplicitas, to use the church Latin: "sacred simplicity." Walking the dog is in truth a ritual of renewal and revival on an intimate scale - a small rebirth of well-being on a daily basis. — 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

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

Making a living and having a life are not the same thing. Making a living and making a life that's worthwhile are not the same thing. Living the good life and living a good life are not the same thing. A job title doesn't even come close to answering the question. "What do you do?". — 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

Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don't forget. — Robert Fulghum

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

You feel like an ant contemplating Chicago. — 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

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. — Robert Fulghum

Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. — Robert Fulghum

Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know. — Robert Fulghum

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

Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes. — Robert Fulghum

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

Pardon me, but my father says that it is a lie that Americans have everything. You have no sheep, no goats, no trees, no oil, no vines, no wine, not even chickens. He asks, 'What kind of life is that?' He says, 'No wonder you don't sing or dance or recite poetry very often. — Robert Fulghum

Anything can happen. The great banana peel of existence is always on the floor somewhere. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

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

Even if your watch is full of diamonds the hour is still 60 minutes — 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

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

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

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

Why is love easy? I don't know. And the raccoons don't say. — Robert Fulghum

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

When my father finally got around to teaching me to drive, he was impressed at my "natural" talent for driving, not knowing that I had already been secretly driving my mother's car around the neighborhood. When I took the test and got my license and my father gave me my own set of keys to the car one night at dinner, it was a major rite of passage for him and my mother. Their perception of me had changed and was formally acknowledged. For me the occasion meant a private sanction to do in public what I had already been doing in secret. — 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

Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference. — Robert Fulghum

The examined life is no picnic. — Robert Fulghum

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

The myth of the impossible dream is more powerful than all the facts of history. — 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

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

Instructions For Wayfarers They will declare: Every journey has been taken. You shall respond: I have not been to see myself. They will insist: Everything has been spoken. You shall reply: I have not had my say. They will tell you: Everything has been done. You shall reply: My way is not complete. You are warned: Any way is long, any way is hard. Fear not. You are the gate - you, the gatekeeper. And you shall go through and on ... - Alexandros Evangelou Xenopouloudakis, THIRD WISH — Robert Fulghum

It doesn't matter what you say you believe - it only matters what you do. — Robert Fulghum

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

Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game? Do we still have what it takes to find a better way? — Robert Fulghum

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. — 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

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. — Robert Fulghum

The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum

Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this "something" cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It's what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours. Memory. The census doesn't count it. Nothing counts without it. — 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

Whenever life becomes Tinkertoys, the queen may be sacrificed. — Robert Fulghum

All I really need to know ... I learned in kindergarten. — Robert Fulghum

My own movement of thought is not meant to be a straight point-to-point, linear line of march, but horizontal exploration from one area of interest to another. There is no ultimate destination - no finish line to cross, no final conclusion to be reached. It's the way I feel about dancing - you move around a lot, not to get somewhere, but to be somewhere in time. — Robert Fulghum

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

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'. — Robert Fulghum

My secret agenda is to convey my values to my kids. — Robert Fulghum

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. — Robert Fulghum