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Washington Senator Daniel Evans thought the kindergarten essay was too profound to be confined to his home state, and he read it into the Congressional Record. Televangelist Robert Schuller got hold of a copy and broadcast it to his congregation. Abbreviated versions were published in "Dear Abby" and the Reader's Digest. In 1987 a Connecticut schoolteacher passed out copies to her class. The mother of one child was a literary agent, who sensed commercial possibilities in Fulghum's entry-level insights. She traced the author to his home and dangled promises of publication. The minister was astonished: "I've been writing this stuff for years," he told her. "How many boxes do you want?" As it turned out, there was enough stuff to make a slender 196-page work, issued without fanfare and ignored by major reviewers. But there is no advertising like word of mouth, and within three weeks All I Really Need to Know had become the little book that could.
In every epoch some sage is appointed to state the obvious in block letters. During the '60s the advice of Kahlil Gibran was revived. In the '70s Richard Bach made Jonathan Livingston Seagull a feathered superstar. Then came Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, who explained the times When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And suddenly it was Fulghum's turn. The rabbi found a simple explanation for the reverend's overnight success: "In a world of complex ethical decisions, he cuts through the details and says, 'At the heart are a few simple rules. You can be a moral person; it's not as complicated as it seems.' "
Across the country, readers began treating those simple rules as their personal mantras:
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.
To date, nearly 5 million copies of Fulghum's works have been sold, and more printings are under way. Three virtues propel these slim volumes: they are unabashedly affirmative, their wit is unobtrusive, and their punch lines could fit in a fortune cookie. The author notes, for example, that headlines shout stories of "crookedness and corruption -- of policemen who lie and steal, doctors who reap where they do not sow, politicians on the take." Don't be misled, he warns. "They are news because they are the exceptions. The evidence suggests that you can trust a lot more people than you think."
Fulghum pauses to make some calculations. At the age of 53, he has spent some 40,000 hours eating, 35,000 hours in traffic getting from one place to another, 2,903 hours brushing his teeth, 875,000 hours coping with odds and ends, filling out forms, repairing, paying bills, getting dressed and undressed, and 223,000 hours at work. "There's not a whole lot left over when you get finished adding and subtracting," he concludes. "The good stuff has to be fitted in somewhere. Which is why I often say: It's not the meaning of life, it's the meaning in life."