Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Standards
Air
Ordinary
Word
Come
Patronizing
Done
Loathe
Things
Extraordinary
People
Across
More quotes by Studs Terkel
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
More and more we are into communications and less and less into communication.
Studs Terkel
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
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
Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.
Studs Terkel
Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
Studs Terkel
Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.
Studs Terkel
Marvin Miller, I suspect, is the most effective union organizer since John L. Lewis.
Studs Terkel
Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.
Studs Terkel
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
I was born in the year the Titanic sank. The Titanic went down, and I came up. That tells you a little about the fairness of life.
Studs Terkel
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
All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
Studs Terkel
I'm not a Luddite completely I believe in refrigerators to cool my martinis, and washing machines because I hate to see women smacking their laundry against a rock. When I hear about hardware, I think of pots and pans, and when I hear about software, I think of sheets and towels.
Studs Terkel
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
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
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
I want to praise activists through the years. I praise those of the past as well, to have them honored.
Studs Terkel
I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
Studs Terkel
Hope never trickles down. It always springs up.
Studs Terkel
