All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Quotes

“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, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Why isn't love easy?
I don't know. And the raccoons don't say.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“I may be wrong”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“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. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "I don't want anyone to know." "What will people think?" "I don't want to bother anyone."

Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found.

Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.

"Olly-olly-oxen-free." The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says "Come on in, wherever you are. It's a new game." And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarden

“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“... all things live only if something else is cleared out of the path to make way. No death; no life. No exceptions. Things must come and go. People. Years. Ideas. Everything. The wheel turns, and the old is cleared away as fodder for the new.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“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, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“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, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“There are far worse things to drop on people than Crayolas.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Imagination is more important than information.” Einstein said that, and he should know.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Knowledge is meaningful only if it is reflected in action. The human race has found out the hard way that we are what we do, not just what we think.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“It is comforting to know that some very old and very simple ways of getting from one place to another still work.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Keep your eyes open. Suspend judgment. Be useful,”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“As long as life exists, something always happens next. There are always consequences—always sequels.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“If you only make it up, you never have to live it down.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Moths and butterflies are not the same thing. Moths sneak around in the dark munching your sweater and are ugly. Butterflies hand out with flowers in the daytime and are pretty. Never mind any facts or what silkworm moths are responsible for, or what poisonous butterflies do.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“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.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“It is not true, by the way, that mermaids do not exist. I know at least one personally. I have held her hand.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“It reminds me of an old Sufi story of a good man who was granted one wish by God. The main said he would like to go about doing good without knowing about it. God granted his wish. And then God decided that it was such a good idea, he would grant that wish to all human beings. And so it has been to this day.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Out of the mouths of babes may come gems of wisdom, but also garbage.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Why is there Something instead of Nothing?”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts. . . .”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., the summer I turned”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“You'd like my grandfather. And he'd like you, I think. Happy Grandfather's Day to him, wherever he is. If you see him, let him take you out to see the stars some night.
And tell him I said I'd really like it if he came home for Christmas.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Ignorance and power and pride are a deadly mixture, you know.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“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, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

“Věřím, že fantazie je silnější než vědění.
Že mýty mají větší moc než historie.
Že sny jsou mocnější než skutečnost.
Že naděje vždy zvítězí nad zkušeností.
Že smích je jediným lékem na zármutek.
A věřím, že láska je silnější než smrt.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten