Bel Kaufman Quotes

The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn't it a magnificent day today?

... good teachers, like Tolstoy's happy families, are alike everywhere.

When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.

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.

I like the word OLD. Not senior, that's for proms. Older? Older than whom? 'Old' is honorable and ripe

The heart has its reasons; it's the mind that's suspect.

People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.

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.

But if there is such a thing as social commitment in literature, I think it must manifest itself in a reader's awareness of the human condition, in the writer's touching some common nerve ending. I think this kind of social commitment, like a lady's slip, should be there but it must not show.

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. 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.

Never mind the cream; it will always rise to the top. It's the skim milk that needs good teachers.

Love is the ultimate giving, an expression of one's best self.

Education can't make us all leaders, but it can teach us which leader to follow.

Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.

Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.

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.

And 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.

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.

Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.

Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy. You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.

Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.

To the young, cliches seem freshly minted.

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.