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 KAUFMANThe heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
More Bel Kaufman Quotes
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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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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
BEL KAUFMAN -
Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy.
BEL KAUFMAN -
The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
BEL KAUFMAN -
You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
BEL KAUFMAN -
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.
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One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have “windows with trees in them.
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I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
BEL KAUFMAN -
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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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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I want to point the way to something that should forever lure them, when the TV set is broken and the movie is over and the school bell has rung for the last time.
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Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
BEL KAUFMAN






