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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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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
Right
Pick
Think
Picks
Thinking
Deserve
Waitress
Says
Plate
Hear
Plates
Sound
Served
Someone
Glass
Come
Glasses
More quotes by Studs Terkel
The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
Studs Terkel
I guess I was seeking some balance in the wildlife of the city as Rachel Carson sought it in nature. In unbalanced times, balance is as difficult to come by as Parsifal's Grail.
Studs Terkel
More and more we are into communications and less and less into communication.
Studs Terkel
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
Hope never trickles down. It always springs up.
Studs Terkel
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
Ordinary' is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.
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
I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
Studs Terkel
Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.
Studs Terkel
When it comes to the news, the corporate view is `objective,' all else is propaganda.
Studs Terkel
I find labels liberal and conservative of little meaning. Our language has become perverted along with the thoughts of many of us.
Studs Terkel
I'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.
Studs Terkel
My epitaph? My epitaph will be, 'Curiosity did not kill this cat'.
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
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
Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.
Studs Terkel
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
Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
Studs Terkel
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
