90 Quotes by Terry Gross

That era in the late '80s through the '90s was really when the music was so new, fresh, energetic, but still creative. It hadn't quite gotten corporatized yet.

I think in particularly with young kids who don't have a lot of positive influences, pop culture almost becomes a larger part of that self-discovery and how you define yourself.

An interesting difference between African-American humor and Jewish humor, in it's kind of basic or maybe most austere type form is, African-American humor, some of it comes out of playing the dozens in which you insult the other person or insult the other person's mother, and so much of Jewish humor is like, you're insulting yourself. It's totally self-deprecating.

The sex drive is one of the most fundamental human urges, and throughout history, there have been laws regulating what is considered acceptable sexual behavior. In the past century, the law has had trouble keeping up with changing social and moral standards.

A lot of the things that we think of as being racial differences are really class differences in America.

All my brothers and sisters have stories about Dad like this. I remember, when my sister was about to beat him in checkers for the first time, he knocked the board over.

And the rules were so clear, you could not deviate from that all. And I think it especially damaged my sisters because there was nothing they could do to get my father's attention, to win his approval. They could not play sports. They could not do these other things. They could not be tough. They could not be macho. And so I think they suffered just from sheer neglect if nothing else.

I don't think my father noticed that he had daughters. I think, you know, part of the damage of the childhood was, I simply don't think they were acknowledged as human beings at all. Or - you know, one of the reasons I became a cook later on in my life was, I was not allowed to cook an egg.

So when the book came out, my mother stunned us all by leaving my father. I think three months before the book came out, she left my father the day he retired from the Marine Corps. They had a parade and march, and she came home and left.