Studs Terkel quotes

The key issue is jobs. You can't get away from it: jobs. Having a buck or two in your pocket and feeling like somebody. (Studs Terkel)
Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt. View quote
Studs Terkel
You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist. View quote
Studs Terkel
I was born in the year the Titanic sank. The Titanic went down, and I came up. That tells you a little about the fairness of life. View quote
Studs Terkel
I thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now. View quote
Studs Terkel
Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too. View quote
Studs Terkel
Why are we born? We're born eventually to die, of course. But what happens between the time we're born and we die? We're born to live. One is a realist if one hopes. View quote
Studs Terkel
I hope for peace and sanity - it's the same thing. View quote
Studs Terkel
Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer the revealing of self. Here I be. Not for long, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own. View quote
Studs Terkel
Think of what's stored in an 80- or a 90-year-old mind. Just marvel at it. You've got to get out this information, this knowledge, because you've got something to pass on. There'll be nobody like you ever again. Make the most of every molecule you've got as long as you've got a second to go. View quote
Studs Terkel
I'm celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated. (Studs Terkel)
You know, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely. Einstein said everything had changed since the atom was split, except the way we think. We have to think anew. View quote
Studs Terkel
I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him. View quote
Studs Terkel
I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic. View quote
Studs Terkel
Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. View quote
Studs Terkel
Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits. View quote
Studs Terkel
When you become part of something, in some way you count. It could be a march; it could be a rally, even a brief one. You're part of something, and you suddenly realize you count. To count is very important. View quote
Studs Terkel
I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it. View quote
Studs Terkel
I've always felt, in all my books, that there's a deep decency in the American people and a native intelligence - providing they have the facts, providing they have the information. View quote
Studs Terkel
I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be. View quote
Studs Terkel
I want a language that speaks the truth. (Studs Terkel)
Nonetheless, do I have respect for people who believe in the hereafter? Of course I do. I might add, perhaps even a touch of envy too, because of the solace. View quote
Studs Terkel
At a time when pimpery, lick-spittlery, and picking the public's pocket are the order of the day - indeed, officially proclaimed as virtue - the poet must play the madcap to keep his balance. And ours. View quote
Studs Terkel
How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you. View quote
Studs Terkel
Doris Lessing: We simply have no idea of Chicago ... We never think of you as being on a lake, or of the city being beautiful. We think about the gangsters. You do still have gangsters, don't you? Terkel: Yes, but these days they're mostly in business, or politics. View quote
Studs Terkel