Quote

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.

Studs Terkel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Something
Middle
Disturbed
Maybe
Somewhat
Though
Impressed
Live
Immediately
Book
Six
Done
Doctors
Work
Months
Bypass
Mind
Unless
Suggested

More quotes by Studs Terkel

Image
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.
Studs Terkel
Image
Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.
Studs Terkel
Image
But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things, and that's what it's all about. They must count.
Studs Terkel
Image
Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.
Studs Terkel
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it.
Studs Terkel
Image
Ordinary' is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.
Studs Terkel
Image
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.
Studs Terkel
Image
The answer is to say 'No!' to authority when authority is wrong.
Studs Terkel
Image
Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.
Studs Terkel
Image
People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being.
Studs Terkel