Work is born in us. We take to it kindly or unkindly. The terms may be easy or harsh, but the contract is binding.

In order for us, black and white, to disenthrall ourselves from the harshest slavemaster, racism, we must disinter our buried history.... We are all the Pilgrim, setting out on this journey.

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.

Most of us, like the assembly line worker, have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.

Reading a book should not be a passive exercise, but rather a raucous conversation.

The history of those who shed those other tears, the history of those anonymous millions, is what Terkel wants readers and listeners to come away with. What's it like to be that goofy little soldier, scared stiff, with his bayonet aimed at Christ? What's it like to have been a woman in a defense-plant job during World War II? What's it like to be a kid at the front lines? It's all funny and tragic at the same time.

I am paraphrasing Einstein. I love to do that: nobody dares contradict me.