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

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

People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another. -Studs Terkel

No matter what the issues are, it has to be handled at the grassroots. When you take part in something, even though that movement may lose, the juices start flowing and you feel you count. You count. Well, that's pretty important.

Taking life seriously requires taking death seriously.

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.

Smug respectability, like the poor, we've had with us always. Today, however, ... such obtuseness is an indulgence we can no longer afford. The computer, nuclear energy for better or worse, and sudden, simultaneous influences upon everyone's TV screen have raised the ante and the risk considerably.