Studs Terkel Quotes
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I'm not a Luddite completely; I believe in refrigerators to cool my martinis, and washing machines because I hate to see women smacking their laundry against a rock. When I hear about hardware, I think of pots and pans, and when I hear about software, I think of sheets and towels.
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All the other books ask, 'What's it like?' What was World War II like for the young kid at Normandy, or what is work like for a woman having a job for the first time in her life? What's it like to be black or white?
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Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.
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I thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now.
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Dorothy Day said - and I'm sure that Kathy Kelly would say the same thing - 'I'm working toward a world in which it will be easier for people to behave decently.' Now, think about that: a world in which it will be easier for people to behave decently.
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I find labels "liberal" and "conservative" of little meaning. Our language has become perverted along with the thoughts of many of us.
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People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another. -Studs Terkel
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I never drove a car. I'm hopeless that way. I press the wrong buttons on the tape recorder. But if the person I'm interviewing helps me out, that person feels needed. People need to feel needed.
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Work is born in us. We take to it kindly or unkindly. The terms may be easy or harsh, but the contract is binding.
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On the evening bus, the tense, pinched faces of young file clerks and elderly secretaries tell us more than we care to know. On the expressways, middle management men pose without grace behind their wheels as they flee city and job.
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I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him.
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All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
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I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it.
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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.
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Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero'.
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Unless there's a grassroots movement of some sort, with TV and the media in general in the hands of fewer and fewer people - the Murdochians, you know - all we hear is the one point of view. There has to be something communal.
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If solace is any sort of succor to someone, that is sufficient. I believe in the faith of people, whatever faith they may have.
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Work is a search for daily meaning as well as for daily bread.
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The history of those who shed those other tears, the history of those anonymous millions, is what Terkel wants readers and listeners to come away with. What's it like to be that goofy little soldier, scared stiff, with his bayonet aimed at Christ? What's it like to have been a woman in a defense-plant job during World War II? What's it like to be a kid at the front lines? It's all funny and tragic at the same time.
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That's what we're missing. We're missing argument. We're missing debate. We're missing colloquy. We're missing all sorts of things. Instead, we're accepting.
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I hope that memory is valued - that we do not lose memory.
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I have a big mouth, and I never met a petition I didn't like, so of course in the McCarthy days I got in trouble.
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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.
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People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being.