Quote

I find labels liberal and conservative of little meaning. Our language has become perverted along with the thoughts of many of us.

Studs Terkel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Many
Meaning
Along
Thoughts
Language
Perverted
Become
Liberal
Littles
Labels
Find
Conservative
Little
Perspective

More quotes by Studs Terkel

Image
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
Image
In order for us, black and white, to disenthrall ourselves from the harshest slavemaster, racism, we must disinter our buried history.... We are all the Pilgrim, setting out on this journey.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it.
Studs Terkel
Image
Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.
Studs Terkel
Image
You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Marvin Miller, I suspect, is the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis.
Studs Terkel
Image
Ordinary' is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
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.
Studs Terkel