Quotes from Robert Fulghum

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

When I'm finished, I have a sense of accomplishment. A sense of competence. I am good at doing the laundry. At least that. And it's a religious experience, you know. Water, earth, fire—polarities of wet and dry, hot and cold, dirty and clean. The great cycles—round and round—beginning and end—Alpha and Omega, amen. I am in touch with the GREAT SOMETHING-OR-OTHER. For a moment, at least, life is tidy and has meaning.

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

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

I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light –truth, understanding, knowledge–is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.

The shift of self-perception is the most powerful ingredient in the chain reaction of becoming the person you are always becoming.

Když jsou hodní lidé, které máme rádi, je v tom stejnÄ› vždycky o?ekávání a nadÄ›je na opÄ›tovanou lásku. Ale cizí lidi tím nic nezískají, jen ve svÄ›tÄ› nar?stá celkové množství lásky. A za tuhle lásku jsem vd??ná.

Surprise is at the core of existence. It's true. You never ever really know what's coming next.

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

WEDDINGS ARE USUALLY THOUGHT OF AS fairytale times when Real Life is momentarily suspended.

Teachers want to know what difference they made in the lives of their pupils, and reunions are a great place to find out.

It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It

We are as different from one another on the inside of our heads as we appear to be different from one another on the outside of our heads.

All things which make noise at the side of the path do not come down the path. AFRICAN PROVERB

As long as life exists, something always happens next. There are always consequences—always sequels.

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. Tears bring relief. Laughter brings release.

If it is not worth doing, it is worth not doing it well.

Life is—and we are—byproducts of combustion. Imagination turned to form and finally, memory.

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.

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

The eye that looks in on us and the eye that looks out from us is not the same eye.

Only at some distance in time and place do you understand the significance of the crossing over—finding in the ritual retelling a way of sanctifying the memory.

For forty years I combed my hair that way, and every time I did, I pushed my mother away from me. There was much she didn't like about my life—and the parting of my hair became a ritual parting of the ways with her.

If you only make it up, you never have to live it down.