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I want a language that speaks the truth.

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
Speaks
Language
Speak
Truth
Writing

More quotes by Studs Terkel

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I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
Studs Terkel
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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
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I want to praise activists through the years. I praise those of the past as well, to have them honored.
Studs Terkel
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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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I thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now.
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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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.
Studs Terkel
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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
Studs Terkel
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Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.
Studs Terkel
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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?
Studs Terkel
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Work is a search for daily meaning as well as for daily bread.
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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All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
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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My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.
Studs Terkel
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When I put the plate down, you don't hear a sound. When I pick up a glass, I want it to be just right. When someone says, How come you're just a waitress? I say, Don't you think you deserve being served by me?
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 find labels liberal and conservative of little meaning. Our language has become perverted along with the thoughts of many of us.
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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Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
Studs Terkel