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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

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Source and credibility

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Source: On Nelson Algren, Talking to Myself Bk. 4 (1973)
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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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.

Heroic? I was scared shitless! But my ego was at stake. My vanity. "Whaddya mean, I'm dumb?"

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Chicago is not the most corrupt American city, it's the most theatrically corrupt.

I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you.

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I was walking downstairs carrying a drink in one hand and a book in the other. Don't try that after ninety.

I'm celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated.

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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.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Studs Terkel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.