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But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.

Studs Terkel

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Studs Terkel
Age: 96 †
Born: 1912
Born: May 16
Died: 2008
Died: October 31
Actor
Author
Historian
Journalist
Music Journalist
Poet Lawyer
Radio Personality
Writer
New York City
New York
Louis Terkel
Active
Excited
Realize
Realizing
Happens
Become
Something
Count
Suddenly

More quotes by Studs Terkel

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I suppose if I have an epitaph it would be: Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat. I don't see retiring in the sense that we view it - I don't see how I could. Dying at the microphone or at the typewriter would not be bad.
Studs Terkel
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The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
Studs Terkel
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Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.
Studs Terkel
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Smug respectability, like the poor, we've had with us always. Today, however, ... such obtuseness is an indulgence we can no longer afford. The computer, nuclear energy for better or worse, and sudden, simultaneous influences upon everyone's TV screen have raised the ante and the risk considerably.
Studs Terkel
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When it comes to the news, the corporate view is `objective,' all else is propaganda.
Studs Terkel
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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.
Studs Terkel
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There are nascent stirrings in the neighborhood and in the field, articulated by non-celebrated people who bespeak the dreams of their fellows. It may be catching. Unfortunately, it is not covered on the six o'clock news.
Studs Terkel
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Cannot Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' be subject to transposition: the evil of banality?
Studs Terkel
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The 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
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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.
Studs Terkel
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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.
Studs Terkel
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I want a language that speaks the truth.
Studs Terkel
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An agnostic is a cowardly atheist.
Studs Terkel
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Marvin Miller, I suspect, is the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis.
Studs Terkel
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I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it.
Studs Terkel
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More and more we are into communications and less and less into communication.
Studs Terkel
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I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature. In unbalanced times, balance is as difficult to come by as Parsifal's Grail.
Studs Terkel
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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
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People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations.
Studs Terkel
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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.
Studs Terkel