A Quote by Studs Terkel

Ordinary' is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things.

Studs Terkel

Quote Topics

Across Air Come Done Extraordinary Extraordinary Things Loathe Ordinary Ordinary People Ordinary Things Patronizing People Things Word

Quote Author

Studs Terkel
American - Journalist
May 16, 1912 - October 31, 2008

What I bring to the interview is respect. The person recognizes that you respect them because you're listening. Because you're listening, they feel good about talking to you. When someone tells me a thing that happened, what do I feel inside? I want to get the story out. It's for the person who reads it to have the feeling . . . In most cases the person I encounter is not a celebrity; rather the ordinary person. "Ordinary" is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. (p. 176)

Studs Terkel

The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.

Veronique Vienne

The extraordinarily facile and in literary terms long lived works tend to be about ordinary people. Even Sappho writes about the utterly insignificant . What art can do is make the extraordinary more ordinary and ordinary more extraordinary.

Robert Dessaix

In every single day, in every walk of life, ordinary people do extraordinary things. Ordinary People accomplish Extraordinary things.

Jim Valvano

All people seem to be divided into'ordinary'and 'extraordinary'. The ordinary people must lead a life of strict obedience and have no right to transgress the law because?theyare ordinary.Whereas the extraordinary people have the right to commit any crime they like and transgress the law in any way just because they happen to be extraordinary.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Readily people do not accept any ordinary to behave like an extraordinary unless and until some extraordinary but preferably wealthy approves him to be not ordinary.

Anuj

The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

We tried to present the ordinary in an extraordinary manner. But that's the paradox because the only thing extraordinary about it was that it was so ordinary. Nobody had ever done it before, deliberately. Now it's called documentary, which I suppose is all right ... We just took pictures that cried out to be taken.

Ben Shahn

Drop the idea of being Extraordinary! It's keeping you mediocre. To be Ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. The Ordinary person has light in his eyes; he has become extraordinary but he has no idea of it.

Rajneesh

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.

Boris Pasternak

We should assume that we all have a lot in common. Speak as if our views are the only sensible ones. This resonates with ordinary people, as long as we speak ordinary language and don't come across as elitists.

Michael Yates

The ordinary air fighter is an extraordinary man and the extraordinary air fighter stands as one in a million among his fellows.

Theodore Roosevelt

Democracy elevates by turning ordinary people into extraordinary ordinary people called celebrities.

Florence King

A wound that’d make an ordinary man unconscious, I won’t lose to it. A wound that would kill an ordinary person, I won’t lose to it! To face one who is extraordinary, Hawk Eyes - I can’t allow myself to be ordinary!

Zoro

I think the movie, 'Joy,' has so many touchpoints with so many people because it is about the ordinary, but a lot of the times, the ordinary is extraordinary.