Top 160 Robert Fulghum Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “A giraffe has a black tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say. He just goes on giraffing.”

— Robert Fulghum

52. “Always trust your fellow man. And always cut the cards. Always trust God. And always build your house on high ground. Always love thy neighbor. And always pick a good neighborhood to live in.”

— Robert Fulghum

53. “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.”

— Robert Fulghum

54. “Why is love easy? I don’t know. And the raccoons don’t say.”

— Robert Fulghum

55. “Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away!”

— Robert Fulghum

56. “The heart will turn to a prune if love is always by the numbers. How will you know if someone really loves you if they only meet your expectations and not your needs?”

— Robert Fulghum

57. “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

58. “Life-and-death. Lifedeath. One event. One short event. Don’t forget.”

— Robert Fulghum

59. “I’ve always thought anyone can make money. Making a life worth living, that’s the real test.”

— Robert Fulghum

60. “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

61. “And give money to all street musicians.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

63. “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

64. “Life is. I am. Anything might happen.”

— Robert Fulghum

65. “I fear the boredom that comes with not learning and not taking chances.”

— Robert Fulghum

66. “It’s the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible.”

— Robert Fulghum

67. “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

68. “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

69. “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

70. “If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. “Learn to separate the inconveniences from the real problems. You will live longer.”

— Robert Fulghum

71. “I’m not often aware that I am happy. But I often remember that I have been happy.”

— Robert Fulghum

72. “Everything looks better at a distance. If you made it up, you have to live it down. Everything is compost. There is no they – only us. It’s a mistake to believe everything you think. You can get used to anything. Sometimes things are just as bad as they seem. It helps if you always have somebody to kiss goodnight.”

— Robert Fulghum

73. “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

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

— Robert Fulghum

75. “Even if your watch is full of diamonds the hour is still 60 minutes.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum

77. “It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It.”

— Robert Fulghum

78. “The winding down of summer puts me in a heavy philosophical mood.”

— Robert Fulghum

79. “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

80. “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

81. “My mother was pulling my leg on that one. I have collected so much gift-wrapped trash over the years from people who copped out and hurriedly bought a little plastic cheapie to give under the protective flag of good thoughts. I tell you, it is the gift that counts. Or rather, people who think good thoughts give good gifts. It ought to be a rule – the Brass Rule of Gift Exchange.”

— Robert Fulghum

82. “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

83. “Life is nothing but moments of crossing over.”

— Robert Fulghum

84. “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.”

— Robert Fulghum

85. “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

86. “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

87. “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

88. “Any fool can make enough money to survive. It’s another thing to keep yourself consistently entertained. It’s a lot of work, and a lot of fun, to make a life.”

— Robert Fulghum

89. “To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level.”

— Robert Fulghum

90. “To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence, hollering, ‘What’s it for?’”

— Robert Fulghum

91. “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

92. “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.”

— Robert Fulghum

93. “I’ve always made a clear distinction between making a life and making a living.”

— Robert Fulghum

94. “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

95. “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

96. “I believe in dancing.”

— Robert Fulghum

97. “If we could just figure out how to have more fun at it, maybe more of us would join the ranks of those who seek after justice and mercy.”

— Robert Fulghum

98. “Children are sent to school to be civilized, to learn to be part of the social enterprise.”

— Robert Fulghum

99. “If you want an interesting party sometime, combine cocktails and a fresh box of crayons for everyone.”

— Robert Fulghum

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

— Robert Fulghum