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
talking office people
One day I visited a guy who had made a fortune as a broker. He was sitting in his office with his computer. I hire people from here and make deals from this room, he told me. Then he took me to the trading room. Nobody was talking to anybody else, the place was silent as a tomb, they were all sitting there watching their terminals - a great word, terminal. I tell you, it scares the crap out of me.
nice vocabulary use
We use the word 'hope' perhaps more often than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.' 'Hopefully, you're doing well.' 'So how are things going along? Pretty good. Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.'
perspective littles labels
I find labels "liberal" and "conservative" of little meaning. Our language has become perverted along with the thoughts of many of us.
sanity
I hope for peace and sanity - it's the same thing.
atheist talking atheism
You happen to be talking to an agnostic. You know what an agnostic is? A cowardly atheist.
reading book exercise
Reading a book should not be a passive exercise, but rather a raucous conversation.
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.
gay may testimony
One of the definitive works on gay life. Through this collective testimony we may come to understand what it is to be 'the other'; in short, the other part of ourselves.
sleep animal wake-up
Once you wake up the human animal, you can't put it back to sleep again.
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.
evil banality subjects
Cannot Hannah Arendt's 'banality of evil' be subject to transposition: the evil of banality?
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.
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.