Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one’s best self.
BEL KAUFMANAnd that’s it; that’s why I want to teach; that’s the one and only compensation: to make a permanent difference in the life of a child.
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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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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To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.
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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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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil’s environment who treats him with respect.
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The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn’t it a magnificent day today?
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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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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
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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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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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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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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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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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“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.
BEL KAUFMAN