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
order play balance
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.
tomorrow be-good
So how are things going along? Pretty good. Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.
realist born dies
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.
jobs men elderly
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.
gun night pigs
One night a guy hit his head on a welding gun. He went to his knees. He was bleeding like a pig, blood was oozing out. So I stopped the line for a second and ran over to help him. The foreman turned the line on again, he almost stepped on the guy. That's the first thing they always do. They didn't even call an ambulance. The guy walked to the medic department -- that's about half a mile -- he had about five stitches put in his head. The foreman didn't say anything. He just turned the line on. You're nothing to any of them.
sleep animal wake-up
Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.
years down-and littles
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.
artist self jazz
Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here I be. Not forlong, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own.
knowing names guy
You can work next to a guy for months without even knowing his name.
faith believe people
If solace is any sort of succor to someone, that is sufficient. I believe in the faith of people, whatever faith they may have.
bed problem greater
Never go to bed with someone whose problems are greater than yours.
air people ordinary
Ordinary' is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.
risk today tvs
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.
country people world
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.