Quote

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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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
Come
Patronizing
Done
Loathe
Things
Extraordinary
People
Across
Standards
Air
Ordinary
Word

More quotes by 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.
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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
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You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
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Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.
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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'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
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More and more we are into communications and less and less into communication.
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.
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I'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.
Studs Terkel
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How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you.
Studs Terkel
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I hope for peace and sanity - it's the same thing.
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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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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Marvin Miller, I suspect, is the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis.
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 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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All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
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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Last year I picked up the New York Times and there was a story about a kid from Dartmouth who was bragging that he never left his room, and made dates and ordered pizza with his computer. The piece de resistance of this story was that he had two roommates, and he was proud of the fact that he only talked to them by computer.
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