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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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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
Time
Hopes
Eventually
Courses
Course
Dies
Born
Happens
Live
Realist

More quotes by Studs Terkel

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Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.
Studs Terkel
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You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
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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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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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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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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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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My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.
Studs Terkel
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Ordinary' is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.
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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You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.
Studs Terkel
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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
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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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The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
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 thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now.
Studs Terkel
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I want a language that speaks the truth.
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 want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.
Studs Terkel
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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