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 KAUFMANTeachers 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.
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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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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Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It’s the skim milk that needs good teachers.
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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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… good teachers, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are alike everywhere.
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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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I like the word OLD. Not senior, that’s for proms. Older? Older than whom? ‘Old’ is honorable and ripe
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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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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
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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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The heart has its reasons; it’s the mind that’s suspect.
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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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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.
BEL KAUFMAN






