The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book! I have lots of great quotes from this book That I am sharing below:

There are three ways to ultimate success:
The first way is to be king.
The second way is to be kind.
The third way is to be kind. ~Fred Rogers

It’s You I Like: It’s not the things you wear or the way you do your hair/But it’s you I like/The way you are right now, the way down deep inside you/Not the things that hide you. ~Fred Rogers

You don’t set out to be rich and famous; you set out to be helpful. ~Fred Rogers

Human kindness will always make life better. ~Maxwell King

It always helps to have people we love beside us when we have to do difficult things in life. ~Fred Rogers
Nothing can replace the influence of unconditional love in the life of a child . . . Children love to belong, they long to belong. ~Fred Rogers

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what essential is invisible to the eye. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The real issue in life is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them. Some have few and give everything away. ~Fred Rogers

Attitudes aren’t taught, they’re caught. If the teacher has an attitude of enthusiasm for the subject, the student catches that whether the student is in second grade or is in graduate school. If you show them what you love, they’ll get it and they’ll want to get it. ~Margaret McFarland

All our lives, we rework the things from our childhood, lik feeling good about ourselves, managing our angry feelings, being able to say good-bye to people we love. ~Fred Rogers

You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you. There’s no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are. ~Fred Rogers

What do you do with the mad that you feel/When you feel so mad you could bite/When the whole wide world seems of so wrong, and nothing you do seems very right/What do you do/Do you punch a bag/Do you pound some clay or some dough/Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you can go/It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned the thing that’s wrong/And be able to do something else instead – and think this song/ I can stop, when I want to/Can stop when I wish/ Can stop, stop, stop anytime/And what a good feeling to feel like this/And know that the feeling is really mine/Know that there’s something deep inside that helps us become what we can/For a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man. ~Fred Rogers

There is a poem he [Fred Rogers] liked called “B e the Best of What You Are.” If you’re a janitor, be the best janitor – or whoever you are. Whatever you do, do it the best way you know how. ~Maxwell King

Hedda Sharapan recalls the seminal program in the week about Mistakes: “Daniel sings to Betty (Lady Aberlin), ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’m a mistake. I’m not supposed to be scared, am I. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I shake, wondering, isn’t it true that the strong never break? I’m not like anyone else I know.’ We wept in the studio and the whole place broke out into applause.” ~Maxwell King

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are. ~Fred Rogers

Our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is – that each of us has something that no one else has – or ever will have – something inside which is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness, and to provide ways of developing its expression. ~Fred Rogers

People long to be in touch with honesty. ~Fred Rogers

I think of discipline as the continual everyday process of helping a child learn self-discipline. ~Fred Rogers

Arsenio Hall ask Fred Rogers how to cope with the violence some kids experience in LA neighborhoods. Fred Rogers quoted his mother, Nancy McFeely Rogers, with advice he would repeat on several occasions on national trauma: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” ~Maxwell King

Fred Rogers weight and part of his email address was 143 and it was a reference to the . . . letters it took to say I love you. One, I. Four, love. Three, you. ~Maxwell King

Fred saw the basic human values: integrity, respect, responsibility, fairness, and compassion, and of course his signature value, kindness. ~Maxwell King

When I was a boy, I used to think that strong meant having big muscles, great physical power; but the longer I live the more I realize that real strength has much more to do with what is not seen. Real strength has to do with helping others. ~Fred Rogers

The white spaces between words are more important than the text, because they give you time to think about what you’ve read. ~Fred Rogers

All his [Fred Rogers] career, he emphasized the importance of listening; he felt that silence is a gift, as is what he called “graceful receiving.” ~Maxwell King

One of the major goals of education must be to help students discover a greater awareness of their own unique selves, in order to increase their feeling of personal worth, responsibility, and freedom. ~Fred Rogers

You know, it may be that our planet, Earth, is the only spot in the entire Universe which can sustain human life. Of all the worlds, we may be the only one where there has ever been – or ever will be – people! That’s sort of like someone saying to you that there is only one square inch of soil on this Earth that can grow anything – and that square inch happens to be in your own back yard. You look at that soil of yours with infinitely greater appreciation when you become aware how rare and valuable it is. ~Fred Roger

He [Fred Rogers] pointed to a photo on the wall, showing Roger’s favorite sign at Rollins College, “Life is for Service” . . . . ~Maxwell King

If you are a fan of Fred Rogers than you really enjoy this book! Even though I do not agree with everything that Mr. Rogers believed I think he had a positive influence not only on children but on our world.

Here is a link to an episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood from August 27, 1997.

Here is another link from May 1, 1969: Fred Rogers testifies before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications.

If you would like to purchase this book click here.

View all my reviews