quote · Legacy record
Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.
Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.
Approximate author period: c. 1966 AD · modern
Meaning not yet available
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- Author or tradition
- Ray Bradbury
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1966 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1920 to 2012; Wikidata Q40640, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q40640 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 338542; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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