"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere"
About this Quote
The line from Dr. Seuss’s One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish works like a cheerful thesis for the book: wherever you go, the world brims with surprise. It celebrates a childlike stance toward reality, one that treats the ordinary as fertile ground for discovery. The key word is funny, which in Seuss’s playful register can mean amusing, odd, delightful, or simply different. The claim that funny things are everywhere is both encouragement and instruction. Look closely, and you will find strangeness and joy not only in distant places but in your own backyard.
Sound and rhythm carry this outlook. The repetition of here and there, culminating in everywhere, creates a lilting rise that expands the child’s sense of space. The line rides Seuss’s trademark anapestic bounce, which makes movement feel inevitable and light. It trains early readers to hear patterns, while also suggesting that wonder does not require effortful searching; it appears as you move through the world.
Context deepens the meaning. Published in 1960 as an early reader, the book strings together a parade of creatures and vignettes that resist tidy categories. The pictures and text invite children to accept difference with curiosity rather than fear. Funny is not a warning that something is wrong; it is an invitation to engage. That open stance becomes a subtle lesson in empathy and flexibility.
There is a philosophical undertone, too. By pairing there to here with here to there, the line flattens hierarchies of place and undermines the idea that delight resides only elsewhere. Life is not a treasure hunt with one hidden prize but a continuous field of possibilities. For children and adults alike, the message offers resilience: boredom shrinks when attention widens. Move a little, look again, and the familiar turns new. In the world of Seuss, humor and oddity are not distractions from reality; they are portals into it.
Sound and rhythm carry this outlook. The repetition of here and there, culminating in everywhere, creates a lilting rise that expands the child’s sense of space. The line rides Seuss’s trademark anapestic bounce, which makes movement feel inevitable and light. It trains early readers to hear patterns, while also suggesting that wonder does not require effortful searching; it appears as you move through the world.
Context deepens the meaning. Published in 1960 as an early reader, the book strings together a parade of creatures and vignettes that resist tidy categories. The pictures and text invite children to accept difference with curiosity rather than fear. Funny is not a warning that something is wrong; it is an invitation to engage. That open stance becomes a subtle lesson in empathy and flexibility.
There is a philosophical undertone, too. By pairing there to here with here to there, the line flattens hierarchies of place and undermines the idea that delight resides only elsewhere. Life is not a treasure hunt with one hidden prize but a continuous field of possibilities. For children and adults alike, the message offers resilience: boredom shrinks when attention widens. Move a little, look again, and the familiar turns new. In the world of Seuss, humor and oddity are not distractions from reality; they are portals into it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Funny |
|---|---|
| Source | One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish — Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel), Random House, 1960; rhyme includes the line "From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere." |
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