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The building itself is hostile: cracked plaster, broken windows, splintered doors and carved up desks, gloomy corridors and metal stairways, dingy cafeteria (they can eat sitting down only in 20 minute shifts) and an auditorium which has no windows. It does have murals, however, depicting mute, muscular harvesters, faded and immobile under a mustard sun.

— Bel Kaufman Up the Down Staircase (1965)

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More quotes by Bel Kaufman

One of my students had written wistfully of a dream-school that would have "windows with trees in them."

Up the Down Staircase (1965)

A teacher is frequently the only adult in the pupil's environment who treats him with respect.

Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.

Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Like most chairmen, he teaches only one class of Seniors; the most experienced teachers are frequently promoted right out of the classroom!

Up the Down Staircase (1965)

"Why did you fail me? I didn't do nothing!" The reply, of course, is: "That's just it."

Up the Down Staircase (1965)

All Bel Kaufman quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Bel Kaufman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.