In Words I Wish I Wrote, Fulghum reveals the works of writers who have inspired him. As he says, "When I look deep beneath my declarations I see the underlying thoughts of others. As hard as I have tried to speak in my own voice, I realize now that nothing I have said is original or unique. My expressions echo and imitate the statements of others. Thought is forever being revived, recycled and renewed. I have found that someone else has always been this way before me. And they have spoken of the way in words I wish I had written, in language I could not improve upon."

The confirming statements, quotes and credos that influenced Fulghum through the years are collected here, organized thematically into such sections as Companions, God, Bene-Dictions, Contra-Dictions, Simplify and Believe. Each section begins with a short introductory essay by Fulghum followed by inspiring passages drawn from a diverse group of sources, from Jerry Garcia to Albert Camus, Dylan Thomas to Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust to Beatrix Potter. In addition, at the end of each section, Fulghum offers readers his own personal commentary on the sources.

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").