Studs Terkel - Day Quotes

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A man comes from New York. He says, "These petitions, your name is on all of them: anti-poll tax, anti-lynching, friendship with the Soviet Union.... don't you know the communists were behind them?" And he said, "Look, you can get out of this pretty easy. All you got to do is say the communists duped you. You were dumb. You didn't mean it." I said, "But I did mean it!" To this day people say, "Oh, Studs, you were so heroic." Heroic? I was scared shitless! But my ego was at stake. My vanity. "Whaddya mean, I'm dumb?"

Studs Terkel
How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you.

Studs Terkel
To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.

Studs Terkel
Doris Lessing: We simply have no idea of Chicago … We never think of you as being on a lake, or of the city being beautiful. We think about the gangsters. You do still have gangsters, don't you?
Terkel: Yes, but these days they're mostly in business, or politics.

Studs Terkel
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.

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