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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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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
Instead
Things
Sorts
Debate
Argument
Missing
Accepting

More quotes by 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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Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.
Studs Terkel
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I'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.
Studs Terkel
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My doctors were of one mind: unless something was immediately done, I had maybe six months to live. A quintuple bypass was suggested. Quintuple! I was impressed, though somewhat disturbed because I was in the middle of work on a new book.
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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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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For the next century, we've got to put together what we so carelessly tore apart with so little concern for those who were gonna follow us. ... You've got to sound off.
Studs Terkel
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You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what 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 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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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.
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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The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
Studs Terkel
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I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic.
Studs Terkel
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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.
Studs Terkel
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It is still the arena of those who dream of the City of Man and those who envision a City of Things. The battle appears to be forever joined. The armies, ignorant and enlightened, clash by day as well as night. Chicago is America's dream, writ large. And flamboyantly.
Studs Terkel
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Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.
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 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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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.
Studs Terkel