Robert Fulghum Quotes

Circumstances, luck, mutual need, affection and time played a part. No relationships were made in heaven. They were made because living things were looking for good company. And when you found good company, you valued it deeply and were responsible for its up-keep and well-being.

"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.

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. Think compost, says I.

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.

I may be wrong

Imagination is more important than information.” Einstein said that, and he should know.

"If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you've got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."
- Robert Fulghum

The grass is not always greener on the other side

Sometimes I think of all the times in this sweet life when I must have missed the affection I was being given. A friend calls this “standing knee-deep in the river and dying of thirst.

"Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn't keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn't playing the game the way it was supposed to be played.

There's hiding and there's finding, we'd say. And he'd say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we'd all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn't play with him anymore if he didn't get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He's probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know.

As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, "GET FOUND, KID!" out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes.

A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn't want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn't need them, didn't trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn't say good-bye.

He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide.

The most difficult mountain to cross is the threshold. DANISH PROVERB

Imagination is better than knowledge.

For everything there is a season, And a time and purpose for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. For everything there is a season, And a time and purpose for every matter under heaven.

"Alla fine, dopo aver lottato contro tutto ciò che avrei dovuto fare diversamente, se avessi saputo allora quello che so adesso, posso dare finalmente una risposta al seguente quesito: "Se potessi rivivere daccapo la tua vita, cosa faresti?" Dopo un'attenta riflessione sono giunto alla conclusione che rifarei tutto quello che ho fatto."

I have never liked the phrase that says we’re just made of dust and return to dust. We are energy, which is interchangeable with light. We are fire and water and earth. We are air and atoms and quarks. Moreover, we are dreams, hopes, and fears held together by wisdom and driven apart by folly. So much more than dust. The biblical verse should say, “Miracle thou art and to Mystery returneth.