Studs Terkel is a Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Chicago activist.

See I call Nixon and myself “Neocartesians.” “We tape, therefore we are.” He did, and I do so. But to me, the tape recorder has become part of my life, but there's an irony connected with this [points to tape recorder] since I'm terrible technologically. I goof up; I can't drive a car. Don't mention the “wordprocessor” to me, “word process,” and when you do, smile, because I don't know—I'm learning a typewriter. But I goof up on the tape, and yet, the tape recorder's my ally. Here I am, so when I press the wrong button, as I did, I lost Martha Graham and Michael Redgrave. I lost them. As I pressed the wrong button, I erased them, and so, this is part of my problem, but nonetheless, the tape recorder has helped me tremendously....

My dream during the Depression and as a child of the Depression.... I wanted a job, as every young guy wanted a job, 9 to 5 job, security. What's more secure than a government job? So we took all kinds of examinations. There were these papers called Civil Service Journals. You could tell when exams are being held, and I took them all and finally passed one and went to Washington; that was part of it. But the dream is to have a 9 to 5 job, and instead I wound up on the stage doing soap operas, gangsters, but because I did have a job on the WPA of the New Deal.