Studs Terkel Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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'.

  Studs Terkel

  Hero, Responsibility, Thinking

  Studs Terkel (1980). “American Dreams: Lost and Found”, p.337, The New Press

  48 Copy quote

• 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.

  Studs Terkel

  Friday, Monday, Dying

  Studs Terkel (1975). “Working”, HarperCollins

  80 Copy quote

• If there is knowledge, it lies in the fusion of the book and the street.

  Studs Terkel

  Lying, Book, Fusion

  24 Copy quote

• We are living in the United States of Alzheimer's. A whole country has lost its memory. When it can't remember yesterday, a country forgets what it once wanted to be.

  Studs Terkel

  Country, Memories, Alzheimer's

  "What I've Learned: Studs Terkel" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. November 6, 2008.

  43 Copy quote

• Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.

  Studs Terkel

  Jobs, Vision, Spirit

  "5 guidelines to help find a more rewarding career" by Sepha Schiffman, www.sfgate.com. May 7, 2000.

  56 Copy quote

• 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.

  Studs Terkel

  Knowledge, Thinking, Years

  52 Copy quote

• I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.

  Studs Terkel

  Differences, People, Want

  Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Interview, www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

  53 Copy quote

• Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.

  Studs Terkel

  People, Ordinary, Capable

  38 Copy quote

• I call myself a radical conservative. What's that? Well, let's analyze it. Go to the dictionary. Radical: One who gets to the roots of things. And I'm a conservative because I want to conserve the green of the grass, the potability of drinking water, the first amendment of the Constitution and whatever sanity we have left.

  Studs Terkel

  Drinking, Roots, Water

  "What I've Learned: Studs Terkel" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. November 6, 2008.

  10 Copy quote

• More and more we are into communications; and less and less into communication.

  Studs Terkel

  Communication

  33 Copy quote

• Hope never trickles down. It always springs up.

  Studs Terkel

  Spring, Trickle Down

  40 Copy quote

• 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.

  Studs Terkel

  Work, Fighting, Eight

  Studs Terkel, Sydney Lewis (2010). “Touch and Go: A Memoir (Large Print 16pt)”, p.92, ReadHowYouWant.com

  70 Copy quote

• The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.

  Studs Terkel

  Answers, Authority

  12 Copy quote

• The trouble with censorship is that once it starts it is hard to stop. Just about every book contains something that someone objects to.

  Studs Terkel

  Book, Censorship, Trouble

  23 Copy quote

• My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.

  Studs Terkel

  Cat, Curiosity, Epitaph

  "Studs Terkel, voice of America's uncelebrated, dies aged 96" by Ben Quinn, www.theguardian.com. October 31, 2008.

  8 Copy quote

• Work is a search for daily meaning
  as well as for daily bread.

  Studs Terkel

  Bread, Wells, Daily Bread

  31 Copy quote

• Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.

  Studs Terkel

  Bed, Problem, Greater

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  Studs Terkel

  People, Generations, Stories

  57 Copy quote

• Don't be an examiner, be the interested inquirer.

  Studs Terkel

  Inquirers

  18 Copy quote

• When I was asked: "Will shame do it?" Meaning: Will welfare people be shamed into getting respectable work? And I said that shame plays the biggest role there is: The biggest shame is that there is so much abundance around but that so many have so little and so few have so much. That's the shame.

  Studs Terkel

  People, Shame, Abundance

  7 Copy quote

• Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.

  Studs Terkel

  Phones, Government, Gone

  "More NSA Legal Actions", www.wired.com. May 22, 2006.

  42 Copy quote

• 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.

  Studs Terkel

  Book, People, Information

  Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Interview, www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

  35 Copy quote

• 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.

  Studs Terkel

  Important, Way, March

  Religion & Ethics Newsweekly Interview, www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

  8 Copy quote

• You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.

  Studs Terkel

  Atheist, Talking, Atheism

  "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly", www.pbs.org. December 19, 2003.

  17 Copy quote

• To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.

  Studs Terkel

  Survival, Triumph, Enough

  Studs Terkel (2013). “The Studs Terkel Reader: My American Century”, p.262, The New Press

  17 Copy quote

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