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 KAUFMANLaughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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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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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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Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.
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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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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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The clerical work is par for the course. “Keep on file in numerical order” means throw in wastebasket. You’ll soon learn the language.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
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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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I am writing this during my lunch period, because I need to reach towards the outside world of sanity, because I am overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the clerical work still to be done, and because at this hour of the morning normal ladies are still sleeping.
BEL KAUFMAN