Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Studs Terkel (American Oral Historian)

Louis “Studs” Terkel (1912–2008) was an American author, oral historian, and radio broadcaster. “Celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated,” he is famous for his streetwise portrayals of Americans from the Great Depression to the early 21st century.

Born to Russian-Jewish immigrants in New York City, Terkel moved to his adopted city of Chicago while a boy. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School, failed the bar exam, drifted into acting, and, in the 1940s, radio, and TV. He served in World War II as a speechwriter, then came back to Chicago and got his radio show.

Terkel is best known for interviewing thousands of anonymous and everyday citizens for his syndicated Studs Terkel Show, which ran from Chicago’s WFMT radio station for 45 years.

Terkel’s oral histories and narratives of the American experience spanned 18 books, including Division Street: America (1966,) the Depression-era memoir Hard Times (1970,) Working (1974,) and American Dreams: Lost and Found (1980,) The Good War (1984; Pulitzer,) Chicago (1986,) Coming of Age (1995,) and Hope Dies Last (2003.)

Terkel also wrote brief biographies of 12 musicians in Giants of Jazz (1957) and the play Amazing Grace (1959.) Touch and Go (2007) is an autobiography.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Studs Terkel

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.
Studs Terkel

Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here I be. Not for long, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own.
Studs Terkel
Topics: Jazz

Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.
Studs Terkel
Topics: Prophecy, Vision

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