I so enjoy being old because for the first time I don’t have to do anything-work, teach, study. I feel very good about myself-and at my age I can say no to anything now if I don’t want to do it. What a liberating word.
BEL KAUFMANThe clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
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I’ll never retire as long as I live—that’s like retiring from life! I’ll never stop writing, teaching, lecturing. If you’re in good health, living is exciting on its own.
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The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn’t it a magnificent day today?
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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
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Teachers try to make us feel lower than themselves, maybe because this is because they feel lower than outside people. One teacher told me to get out of the room and never come back, which I did.
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And that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.
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A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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My mother, for example, has the pleasant notion that my day consists of nodding graciously to the rustle of starched curtsies and a chorus of respectful voices bidding me good morning.
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
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If a teacher wants to know something why doesn’t she look it up herself instead of making we students do it? We benefit ourselves more by listening to her, after all she’s the teacher!
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
BEL KAUFMAN