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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.

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
Life
Tells
Went
Came
Year
Born
Littles
Sank
Little
Titanic
Years
Fairness

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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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.
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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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Work is a search for daily meaning as well as for daily bread.
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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.
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When it comes to the news, the corporate view is `objective,' all else is propaganda.
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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.
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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.
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You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
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Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.
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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.
Studs Terkel
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Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.
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Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.
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'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.
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.
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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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I want a language that speaks the truth.
Studs Terkel
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Hope never trickles down. It always springs up.
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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.
Studs Terkel