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

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You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.
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Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.
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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.
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I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
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All you need in life is truth and beauty and you can find both at the Public Library.
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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.
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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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Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
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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.
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Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.
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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.
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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.
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The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
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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.
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I want a language that speaks the truth.
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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.
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Unless there's a grassroots movement of some sort, with TV and the media in general in the hands of fewer and fewer people - the Murdochians, you know - all we hear is the one point of view. There has to be something communal.
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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.
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I thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now.
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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.
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