I can’t imagine a job where you go home and maybe go by a year later and you don’t know what you’ve done. My work, I can see what I did the first day… - Studs Terkel

There was none of this hatred you see now when strange people come to town, or strangers come to a neighborhood. They resent it, I don’t know why. That’s one of the things about the Depression. There was more camaraderie than there is now. Even more comradeship than the Commies could even dream about. That was one of the feelings that America lost. People had different ideas, they disagreed with one another. But there was a fine feeling among them. You were in trouble . . . damn it, if they could help ya, they would help ya.

Money brings security, that was the idea. But it turned out to be just the opposite. If you have a great big house, that meant you had to be fearful again: somebody might rob you. If you had a great big store, you had to be fearful now that there’s gonna be a riot — and everything in your store would be stolen. See, money brings more fear than security.

I was sleeping on the bodies of killed German soldiers. The Germans were very orderly people. When they found they didn’t have time to bury these bodies, they laid them next to each other in a very neat and orderly way. I saw straight rows, like pieces of cordwood. Exact.