All the other books ask, 'What's it like?' What was World War II like for the young kid at Normandy, or what is work like for a woman having a job for the first time in her life? What's it like to be black or white?
Studs Terkel

But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.
Studs Terkel

Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.
Studs Terkel

I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him.
Studs Terkel

I hope for peace and sanity - it's the same thing.
Studs Terkel

I hope that memory is valued - that we do not lose memory.
Studs Terkel

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

I thought, if ever there were a time to write a book about hope, it's now.
Studs Terkel

I want a language that speaks the truth.
Studs Terkel

I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be.
Studs Terkel

I want to praise activists through the years. I praise those of the past as well, to have them honored.
Studs Terkel

I want, of course, peace, grace, and beauty. How do you do that? You work for it.
Studs Terkel

I'm not up on the Internet, but I hear that is a democratic possibility. People can connect with each other. I think people are ready for something, but there is no leadership to offer it to them. People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are part of a world.'
Studs Terkel

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

If solace is any sort of succor to someone, that is sufficient. I believe in the faith of people, whatever faith they may have.
Studs Terkel

Nonetheless, do I have respect for people who believe in the hereafter? Of course I do. I might add, perhaps even a touch of envy too, because of the solace.
Studs Terkel

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.
Studs Terkel

Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.
Studs Terkel

So people are ready. I feel hopeful in that sense.
Studs Terkel

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.
Studs Terkel