Words I Wish I Wrote: A Collection of Writing That Inspired My Ideas (Paperback)

~ (Author) "What do i believe?..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Skin Horse, The Lord God

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Robert Fulghum, the part-time Unitarian minister whose gentle and humorous stories have made him a bestselling author many times over (beginning with All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten), pays tribute to the writers who inspired him in Words I Wish I Wrote. He confesses that at one particularly low moment in the late '50s, he was dredged up from the Slough of Despond by reading the works Albert Camus, whose gaze over a deeper abyss gave Fulghum hope. It was that experience that led Fulghum to seek out writings with uplifting messages. The result is this compilation of brief passages from the likes of Wallace Stevens ("After the final no there comes a yes"), Tom Robbins ("Real courage is risking one's clichés"), and Buckminster Fuller ("God is a verb"). --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Publishing phenomenon Fulghum, who declared All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten, must have had some class. Here he sums up the works of thinkers who have influenced him, from Camus to Kafka to Proust.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (April 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060932228
• ISBN-13: 978-0060932220
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #316,947 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book of "Words I Wish I Wrote", March 3, 2000

By	Matthew Turner (Berea, Kentucky USA) - See all my reviews

This book has to be one of the best that I have ever read. The effect that it has on the reader is immediate and profound, for it has a way of showing you life through the simplest and yet most obtuse terms. It is truly a piece that will expand the mind and inspire the imagination, a much read for any "thinker."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changed My Whole Perspective, June 1, 2002

By	biblomaven "bibliomaven" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Words I Wish I Wrote: A Collection of Writing That Inspired My Ideas (Hardcover)

I must say that when I started this book today, my day, in fact my week was going very badly. By the time I finished it a couple of hours later my whole perspective had changed, and I feel revived and refreshed. Robert Fulghum has given me back a renewed feeling of faith and hope again. How can I ever show my gratitude? Only by telling others how much it has meant to me. Thank you Robert Fulghum, for sharing the wisdom that you have garnered from these great writers. Although you didn't write their words, yours are so inspiring to me. I would like to share some of my favorites that I think are relevant to the theme of his book:

"The way a book is read -- which is to say, the qualities a reader brings to a book -- can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it." (Norman Cousins)

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!
(Emily Dickinson)

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem to be confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--such is a pleasure beyond compare.
(Yoshida Kenko)

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.
(John Milton)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Labor of love, July 12, 2000

By	Paula Berman (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fulghum's an independent thinker, and I respect him for that. Yeah, his works may not be classed among the greats of philosophy, but I like them. He combines a lust for life to rival Henry James with the knowledge of a lifelong reader and the wisdom born of a varied and examined life experience. I think this book is mostly a labor of love, a tribute to the thinkers who have influenced him as he hopes to reach others. (And if I recall correctly, he's donating the profits).