Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for "The Good War", and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth16 May 1912
CountryUnited States of America
letter society supposed written
Someone who does an act. In a democratic society, you're supposed to be an activist; that is, you participate. It could be a letter written to an editor.
american-journalist happens health people somewhere takes wrote
That's why I wrote this book: to show how these people can imbue us with hope. 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.
american-journalist great people
We are the most powerful nation in the world, but we're not the only nation in the world. We are not the only people in the world. We are an important people, the wealthiest, the most powerful and, to a great extent, generous. But we are part of the world.
american-journalist eventually happens realist time
Why are we born? We're born eventually to die, of course. But what happens between the time we're born and we die? We're born to live. One is a realist if one hopes.
corpses frozen warm
If it weren't for the warm grates we would've had 80 frozen corpses down there during the big blizzard.
Taking life seriously requires taking death seriously.
black-and-white journey order
In order for us, black and white, to disenthrall ourselves from the harshest slavemaster, racism, we must disinter our buried history.... We are all the Pilgrim, setting out on this journey.
hands differences long
I'm called an oral historian, which is something of a joke. Oral history was here long before the pen, long before Gutenberg and the printing press. The difference is I have a tape recorder in my hand.
cancer lynching communist
I said, "Suppose communists come out against cancer, do we have to automatically come out for cancer?'" I can't take back that I'm against the poll tax, that I'm against lynching, that I'm for peace.
mouths trouble mets
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.
cities balance wildlife
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.
drinking roots water
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.
thinking people world
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.
evil banality subjects
Cannot Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' be subject to transposition: the evil of banality?