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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.

Bel Kaufman

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Bel Kaufman
Age: 103 †
Born: 1911
Born: May 10
Died: 2014
Died: July 25
Author
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Berlin
Germany
Bella Kaufman
Firsts
First
Liberating
Feel
Study
Feels
Teach
Work
Word
Good
Age
Time
Enjoy
Anything

More quotes by Bel Kaufman

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I had used my sense of humor I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.
Bel Kaufman
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Best marks go to cheaters and memorizers. Marks depend on memorizing and not on real knowledge. When you cram into your head for a test you may get a high mark but forget it the next day. That's not an education. I suggest just Good and Bad at the end of the term on report cards. Or maybe nothing. Frank Allen
Bel Kaufman
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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 Kaufman
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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. 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.
Bel Kaufman
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The preciousness of every moment is emphasized with every tick of the clock. Isn't it a magnificent day today?
Bel Kaufman
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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. You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
Bel Kaufman
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Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money-in that order it is a process, a never-ending one.
Bel Kaufman
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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!
Bel Kaufman
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When giving comes directly from the heart, it can never disappoint or embarrass.
Bel Kaufman
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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.
Bel Kaufman
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One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have windows with trees in them.
Bel Kaufman
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The heart has its reasons it's the mind that's suspect.
Bel Kaufman
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Learning is a process of mutual discovery for teacher and pupil. Keep an open mind to their unexpected responses.
Bel Kaufman
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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
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Children are the true connoisseurs. What’s precious to them has no price, only value.
Bel Kaufman
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Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
Bel Kaufman
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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.
Bel Kaufman
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Time collapses and expands like an erratic accordion.
Bel Kaufman