Bel Kaufman Quotes
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It was only after her marriage that she had learned to create the illusion of beauty, which is, perhaps, more difficult to achieve than beauty itself.
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Now, long before it came to the final reckoning, to payment of promise implied, she began to set the stage for the great renunciation. “Let’s not spoil it,” she would say, caressing the man’s lapels with long silken fingers. “Let’s not spoil what we have . . .
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As for Walter—he was a man constantly beset by tiny pinpricks of fate.
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Funny, how once you touched off a memory, it was like pulling out a stitch—all the others kept unraveling.
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Why are we quarreling about a tie? flashed through her mind; at the same time, as if propelled by a force outside of herself, she tore it from his hand and flung it furiously into the wastebasket.
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What makes you think you’re so special? Just because you’re a teacher? What he was really saying was: You are so special. You are my teacher. Then teach me, help me, Hey, Teach, I’m lost—which way do I go? I’m tired of going up the down staircase.
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In one of Chekhov’s short stories, a little boy is drawing a picture. His father asks him why the man in the picture is taller than the house. “If he were smaller,” says the child reasonably, “you couldn’t see his eyes.” ENTRY:
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People ate bread made of the shells of peas because there was no flour.
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ENGLISH DEPARTMENT MEETING AT 3 PM IN SCIENCE LAB 409 ON: THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE OF THE PUPIL: SHOULD MACBETH BE TAUGHT IN THE 6th TERM INSTEAD OF THE 5th?
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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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That I was a writer was further proof of God’s far-sightedness; she was convinced that by some magic of propinquity she would acquire a mastery of the English language.
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There was only this one life to live; the unpardonable sin was to waste it.
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Her disappointment was minor compared to her astonishment. “Again I didn’t win? But last year I didn’t win also!”
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Sam had a child’s faith in the healing power of the morning, she thought later, as she lay sleepless at his side; he believed that a good night’s sleep could iron out all the accumulated wrinkles of the day. She resented his ability to fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow while she tossed restlessly in bed; his even breathing was an affront to her wakefulness.
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The past still had its future.
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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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And if this wasn’t the happiness she had once so fiercely demanded, at least she had come to terms with life. That was probably as close to happiness as you could get.
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There is a premium on conformity, and on silence. Enthusiasm is frowned upon, since it is likely to be noisy. The Admiral had caught a few kids who came to school before class, eager to practice on the typewriters. He issued a manifesto forbidding any students in the building before 8:20 or after 3:00—outside of school hours, students are "unauthorized." They are not allowed to remain in a classroom unsupervised by a teacher. They are not allowed to linger in the corridors. They are not allowed to speak without raising a hand. They are not allowed to feel too strongly or to laugh too loudly. Yesterday, for example, we were discussing "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars/ But in ourselves that we are underlings." I had been trying to relate Julius Caesar to their own experiences. Is this true? I asked. Are we really masters of our fate? Is there such a thing as luck? A small boy in the first row, waving his hand frantically: "Oh, call on me, please, please call on me!" was propelled by the momentum of his exuberant arm smack out of his seat and fell on the floor. Wild laughter. Enter McHabe. That afternoon, in my letter-box, it had come to his attention that my "control of the class lacked control.
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Extraordinary—that Willowdale Academy and Calvin Coolidge High School should both be institutions of learning! The contrast is stunning. I had a leisurely tea with the Chairman of the English Department. I saw several faculty members sitting around in offices and lounges, sipping tea, reading, smoking. Through the large casement windows bare trees rubbed cozy branches. (One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have "windows with trees in them"!) Old leather chairs, book-lined walls, air of cultivated casualness, sound of well-bred laughter.
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Stripped of her calculated clothes and the careful camouflage of her make-up she was tired, unalluring, middle-aged. And that was something she would never admit to herself, for most of the illusion of beauty is the conviction of beauty.
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That was what marriage was: the ultimate knowledge of each other, with no need to preen or to pretend. Even its irritations came from closeness.
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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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This is from Payroll Division: I wasn’t even teaching in June, and I certainly don’t have $2.75. Apparently they don’t know I’m file # 443-817 and have got me confused with another–possibly.
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In August they had a bad fright. Her lawyer had suggested that—in view of the circumstances—they drop the divorce. This filled them both with profound dread; at the thought of staying married, of sinking back into the deadly boredom of their pre-divorce days, they felt nothing but horror. They realized more than ever that marriage for them was unthinkable.