Quotes from Fred Rogers

Mary Lou Kownacki: "There isn't anyone you couldn't love once you've heard their story.

Many people work very hard at the things they do for fun.

To get somewhere new, we may have to leave somewhere else behind.

I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.

The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: "Be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart, and learn to love the questions themselves.

Celebrate those who have loved us into being

One of our friends asked Fred about his thoughts on heaven when she was taking a walk with him on a Nantucket beach a few years ago. I'll bet there was a twinkle in his eye when he told her, "Oh, I think there will be a lot of people surprised to see who's there!" Fred would never want anyone to think they might not be worthy of getting through heaven's gate. His God loved everyone—just the way they were!

It takes strength to face our sadness and to grieve and to let our grief and our anger flow in tears when they need to. It takes strength to talk about our feelings and to reach out for help and comfort when we need it.

One of the greatest dignities of humankind is that each successive generation is invested in the welfare of each new generation.

You know, we have pieces of the people that have cared about us all through our lives, and they're all part of us know. And so we represent, each one of us represents, so many investments from others. No one of us is alone.

The world is not always a kind place. That's something all children learn for themselves, whether we want them to or not, but it's something they really need our help to understand.

A berry ripens in its own good time . . . and so does a child's readiness. Just as the one needs water and sunlight, the other needs the patient reassurance of loving adults who can trust children to grow according to their own timetables.

Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect—on any front—and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.

It isn't only famous movie stars who want to be alone. Whenever I hear someone speak of privacy, I find myself thinking once again how real and deep the need for such times is for all human beings . . . at all ages.

It came to me ever so slowly that the best way to know the truth was to begin trusting what my inner truth was… and trying to share it—not right away—only after I had worked hard at trying to understand it.

The way you would draw a tree is different from the way anyone else would draw a tree—and that's the way it's supposed to be!

Deep within us—no matter who we are—there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.

Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

To see people who will notice a need in the world and do something about it [...] Those are my heroes.

Sometimes you are in just the right place.

An unhurried morning routine at home can help your child get ready—and feel ready—for school without haste or anxiety.

More and more I've come to understand that listening is one of the most important things we can do for one another. Whether the other be an adult or a child, our engagement in listening to who that person is can often be our greatest gift. Whether that person is speaking or playing or dancing, building or singing or painting, if we care, we can listen.

A quote he loved especially—and carried around with him—was from Mary Lou Kownacki: "There isn't anyone you couldn't love once you've heard their story." There were many times I wanted to be angry at someone, and Fred would say, "But I wonder what was going on in that person's day." His capacity for understanding always amazed me.

In order to express our sense of reality, we must use some kind of symbol: words or notes or shades of paint or television pictures or sculpted forms. None of those symbols or images can ever completely satisfy us because they can never be any more than what they are—a fragment of a reflection of what we feel reality to be.