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.
BEL KAUFMANTo the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months’ summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect.
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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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“Let it be a challenge to you” means you’re stuck with it; “interpersonal relationships” is a fight between kids; “ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline” means call the cops.
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The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
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To the outside world, of course, this job is a cinch: 9 to 3, five days a week, two months’ summer vacation with pay, all legal holidays, prestige and respect.
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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.
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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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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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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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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
BEL KAUFMAN