To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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I feel no different than I felt at 99, 98 or 97. Just because you live a long time, you get all this attention. Just because you survived? Of course, I survived a lot.
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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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Education can’t make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.
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I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
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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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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
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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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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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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
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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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“Language Arts Dept.” is the English office; “literature based on child’s reading level and experiential background” means that’s all they’ve got in the Book Room; “non-academic-minded” is a delinquent; and “It has come to my attention” means you’re in trouble.
BEL KAUFMAN