Quotes by Jay Parini - Page 2

Christmas is a story that has both religious and pagan origins, and to ignore its power is to ignore the power of myth - those symbols and legends that help us to ground our lives.
Jay Parini /
Christmas
Legends
Myth
Our Lives
Pagan
Symbols
Ignore
Origins
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I have always found the baptism of Jesus, with a dove descending and voice from Heaven, one of the great moments in the Jesus story. This is where Jesus hears the deep call from God.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Baptism
Descending
Dove
Great Moments
Moments
God Great Always
Hears
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Indeed, we might all forget where we have been if we didn't have somebody to assemble and arrange the little blocks called facts from which history is constructed, artfully or less so.
Jay Parini /
Arrange
Assemble
Blocks
Constructed
Indeed
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I say that a myth is a story which has particular energy, mythic resonance. I always say that a myth is a tear in the fabric of reality through which all of this spiritual energy pours.
Jay Parini /
Fabric
Myth
Resonance
Tear
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In a country where Americans sense, quite genuinely, that their freedoms have been taken away by the government - as in the U.S. Patriot Act, as in NSA surveillance - people feel powerless.
Jay Parini /
Nsa
Patriot
Patriot Act
Powerless
Surveillance
Genuinely
Government Country People
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I have written about some truly great writers - John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and William Faulkner. Faulkner and Frost were the very peaks of American poetry and fiction in the 20th century.
Jay Parini /
Frost
Faulkner
William
Peaks
Robert
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Each year in early spring, during the season of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes on Easter, a plenitude of books, magazine articles, and television shows about Jesus appear.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Easter
Articles
Shows
Spring
Television
Television Shows
Wednesday
Appear
Books
Begins
Year
Each
Each Year
Lent
Magazine
Season
Which
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I think the membrane - I say that the membrane between life and death is perilously thin. And I do think the story of Jesus, this great mythical story, can have transforming value in our lives.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Life And Death
Our Lives
Transforming
Life Death Great
Mythical
Thin
Value
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Colleges and classrooms should be havens of tranquility, places where thoughtful discussions occur, where students work together with their teachers to acquire knowledge of the arts and sciences.
Jay Parini /
Acquire
Thoughtful
Tranquility
Teachers
Arts
Classrooms
Colleges
Discussions
Haven
Occur
Places
Sciences
Work Together
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Christmas is, for those who wish to follow the way of Jesus, an invitation to accept into our comfortable and safe lives those who come to us from far away, who seem ragged, marginal, in transition.
Jay Parini /
Christmas
Jesus
Comfortable
Far Away
Ragged
Safe
Wish
Accept
Far
Follow
Invitation
Marginal
Seem
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The gospels were, in fact, written anywhere from forty to a hundred years after Jesus, and their authors attempted to demonstrate that Jesus could be seen to fulfill various Old Testament pronouncements.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Forty
Hundred
Old Testament
Testament
Anywhere
Attempted
Authors
Demonstrate
Fulfill
Gospels
Hundred Years
In Fact
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Language kills, and inflamed rhetoric of the kind that spews almost daily from the lips of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, and others running for public office in this country should be condemned.
Jay Parini /
Running
Lips
Mike
Office
Public Office
Rhetoric
Trump
Ben
Condemned
Daily
Donald
Donald Trump
Inflamed
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With the Patriot Bill in place, the NSA no longer needed to get a warrant from a judge to tap into anybody's electronic information. A Surveillance State that would have boggled the mind of Orwell was born.
Jay Parini /
Nsa
Patriot
Surveillance
Judge
Tap
Electronic
Orwell
Warrant
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Even among those who have no special allegiance to a particular branch of Christianity, there are plenty of seekers as well as agnostics and atheists who harbor a certain curiosity about Jesus and his story.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Agnostic
Allegiance
Christianity
Curiosity
Particular
Plenty
Seekers
Special
Among
Atheists
Branch
Harbor
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Within the Christian tradition, fundamentalism arose in the 19th century as an effort to push back against modern' readings of the Bible that suggested everything in the text wasn't true in some literal sense.
Jay Parini /
Bible
Effort
Fundamentalism
Literal
Within
Against
Christian Tradition
Push
Readings
Suggested
Text
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I still have deep respect for the evangelical tradition and feel, in many ways, close to the Baptist roots of my childhood, although I've been an Episcopalian throughout my adult life and a regular churchgoer.
Jay Parini /
Evangelical
Roots
Adult Life
Baptist
Episcopalian
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To bolster his right flank and attract women voters, John McCain had cynically opted for a running mate who was, by any stretch of the imagination, unqualified for a position a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Jay Parini /
Imagination
Heartbeat
Mccain
Position
Presidency
Unqualified
Voters
Attract
Bolster
Cynically
John
Mate
Running Mate
Stretch
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My own grandparents came to the United States as immigrants in 1912, and they lived for some years in Italian ghettos in New York. Most immigrant groups start in ghettos somewhere, and many of them never get out.
Jay Parini /
Groups
Immigrants
Italian
Somewhere
Immigrant
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I argue that the resurrection was not the Great Resuscitation. It was a total transformation. I just don't accept the black-and-white thinking that goes along with needing to regard the gospels are literally true.
Jay Parini /
Regard
Resurrection
Transformation
Accept
Argue
Gospels
Literally
Needing
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I had a year off, so my wife and I were heading to Italy to study Italian. We found a little house in a village called Atrani. I discovered that Gore Vidal lived right above us in a big house, so I sent him a note.
Jay Parini /
Gore
Italian
Village
Big House
Heading
Italy
Note
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To Western eyes and ears, Sharia law seems devoid of respect for differences of opinion or complex moral thinking. Certainly the American idea of separation between church and state is lost in Sharia-style governance.
Jay Parini /
Church And State
Differences
Ears
Governance
Separation
Western
Devoid
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Good and productive labor is valuable, and it doesn't mean you have to have a fancy job description. You don't have to become rich. You can be ordinary. Happiness lies there. Do good work, create good work for others.
Jay Parini /
Happiness
Description
Fancy
Good Work
Labor
Ordinary
Productive
Rich
Valuable
Job
Work Good Rich
Happiness Work Good
Create
Happiness Lies
Job Description
Lies
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I came to know Gore Vidal in the mid-1980s, when I was living in southern Italy, virtually a neighbour, and our friendship lasted until his death in 2012. Needless to say, he was a complicated and often combative man.
Jay Parini /
Friendship
Complicated
Gore
Neighbour
Combative
Italy
Lasted
Needless
Virtually
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A. S. Byatt is a writer in mid-career whose time has certainly come, because 'Possession' is a tour de force that opens every narrative device of English fiction to inspection without, for a moment, ceasing to delight.
Jay Parini /
Delight
Inspection
Narrative
Possession
Device
Opens
Tour
Whose
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Whether we're looking at the burial box of St. James, a fragment of the True Cross, the Shroud of Turin, or some bones supposedly belonging to John the Baptist, there is always excitement and distrust, faith and doubt.
Jay Parini /
Belonging
Bones
Burial
Distrust
Excitement
Baptist
Cross
Fragment
James
Shroud
Supposedly
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Fundamentalism takes different forms in different religions, but there is one striking similarity in all forms of fundamentalist thought. Each wishes dearly to hold in check all varieties of 'modern' or 'decadent' thinking.
Jay Parini /
Different Religions
Fundamentalism
Similarity
Thinking
Forms
Check
Dearly
Religions
Hold
Striking
Takes
Wishes
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As with all great works of literature, 'Of Mice and Men' moves with the inexorability of a huge river, and it pours itself, exhausts itself, in the sea of our unconscious. Having read it, we carry the book inside us forever.
Jay Parini /
Forever
Literature
Mice
Sea
Unconscious
Carry
River
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There's been an unquestionable decline in American culture. The education system is thin on the ground. People don't read as deeply and at length as they used to. And the media has been scattered into so many cable channels.
Jay Parini /
American Culture
Decline
Length
Cable
Channels
Scattered
Thin
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I suspect that a huge amount of the anxiety and suffering that we see around can be closely traced to our wanton misuse of our resources. Just look at any garbage dump and see what is wasted. In a sense, we've wasted our souls.
Jay Parini /
Amount
Dump
Garbage
Misuse
Resources
Wanton
Closely
Wasted
Huge Amount
Souls
Suspect
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I often think that the last holiday is the greatest, but then some really stand out in my mind. One of the best was one my wife and I had in the Lake District. We stayed in a B&B and walked around the countryside for two weeks.
Jay Parini /
Countryside
Holiday
Two Weeks
District
Lake
Stayed
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I've been teaching full-time for 41 years at small colleges, and I can't imagine what it would mean for me or my colleagues to be armed with handguns or rifles instead of books and a thorough knowledge of our chosen disciplines.
Jay Parini /
Chosen
Colleagues
Rifles
Thorough
Armed
Colleges
Disciplines
Full-Time
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A revival of 'Of Mice and Men' would have seemed out of place in years of Reaganomics, Donald Trump and Michael Milken, a time when Rambo supplied millions of filmgoers with a fantasy that masked what was really going on in their lives.
Jay Parini /
Fantasy
Mice
Revival
Trump
Donald
Donald Trump
Supplied
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Beginning in the late 18th century, some German scholars began to regard Holy Scripture not as a single revelation but a sequence of inspired texts that occurred in specific times and places and were subject to varied and multiple meanings.
Jay Parini /
Century
Holy
Late
Multiple
Regard
Scripture
Sequence
German
Began
Meanings
Occurred
Places
Revelation
Scholars
Specific
Subject
Texts
Varied
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Obviously, you're trying to peel through 20 centuries of theology, speculations, church doctrine and storytelling. I'm trying to get back to the absolute basic story of who was Jesus, what did he say, what was he teaching, and what did he do.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Church
Doctrine
Storytelling
Teaching
Theology
Absolute
Basic
Centuries
Obviously
Peel
Speculations
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The U.S. invaded Vietnam because many in our government - Lyndon Johnson's best and brightest - imagined it could impose a government on that country that would provide a buffer against China and stop the supposedly rolling dominos of Communism.
Jay Parini /
China
Communism
Johnson
Rolling
Vietnam
Best Government Country
Brightest
Buffer
Imagined
Impose
Invaded
Lyndon
Provide
Supposedly
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It seems likely that Jesus, being a scholarly young man, learned some Hebrew, but that's conjecture. It's more likely that Jesus spoke some Greek, as this language dominated the region after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Conjecture
Fourth
Hebrew
Scholarly
Seems
Young Man
Alexander
Dominated
Likely
Region
Spoke
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The ancient Greeks and Romans were comfortable with any number of deities and were quite open to allowing conquered nations to continue to worship in whatever ways they saw fit, as long as they didn't mind having an emperor who required taxes and tributes.
Jay Parini /
Allowing
Ancient
Comfortable
Emperor
Fit
Nations
Taxes
Worship
Ancient Greeks
Conquered
Continue
Number
Greeks
Saw
Required
Romans
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What I'm trying to argue, as passionately as I can, is that the Jesus story isn't worth dying for, it's worth living for. Jesus presents a third way, a way of being in the worth that embraces the Sermon on the Mount, with its challenge to violence and greed.
Jay Parini /
Dying
Greed
Worth Living
Embraces
Mount
Passionately
Presents
Sermon
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We should never forget that Americans continue to advocate for individual liberty, equality and self-governance. We often step in when it's necessary to help countries in need. But our history needs no whitewashing. To attempt this does us a terrible disservice.
Jay Parini /
Disservice
Individual Liberty
Liberty
Never Forget
Advocate
Attempt
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Sarah Palin is a figure of fun on the American left, easily lampooned as a know-nothing, gun-toting ex-beauty queen who loves God and the red, white and blue above pretty much anything else except for Todd, her macho husband, who races snowmobiles across the Alaskan tundra.
Jay Parini /
Blue
Husband
Macho
Palin
Red
Above
Across
Anything Else
Easily
Except
Figure
Loves
Queen
Pretty Much Anything
Sarah Palin
Races
Sarah
Todd
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The United States is truly remarkable, a nation founded on a set of Enlightenment ideals so beautifully expressed by the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution. We should feel good about our ideals, even when we don't quite manage to live up to them.
Jay Parini /
Independence
Declaration
Enlightenment
Feel Good
Ideals
Manage
Remarkable
Good Feel Good Feel
Beautifully
Expressed
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The whole Christmas story was probably a later addition to the gospel narratives, presented only by the authors of Matthew and Luke. Mark and John seem never to have heard of the manger in Bethlehem, the Massacre of the Innocents, the hovering star, the three wise men, and so forth.
Jay Parini /
Christmas
Wise
Bethlehem
Hovering
Luke
Mark
Matthew
Addition
Gospel
Authors
Forth
Innocents
Massacre
Narratives
Presented
Wise Men
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Jesus discouraged the accumulation of wealth, worried about its effects on those who had it, and took special pleasure in helping the poor, dedicating his efforts to them. He must have shaken his head at the large gaps between rich and poor throughout ancient Palestine in the first century.
Jay Parini /
Jesus
Ancient
Discouraged
Effects
Gaps
Helping
Palestine
Pleasure
Rich
Wealth
Worried
Accumulate
Dedicating
Efforts
Large
Shaken
Throughout
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We are a nation of immigrants, a quilt of many colors, and we've managed over more than two centuries to create a way of life that allows for a reasonable degree of upward mobility, that prizes individual liberty, promotes freedom of religion and genuinely values equal rights for all citizens.
Jay Parini /
Religion
Freedom
Citizens
Equal
Equal Rights
Freedom Of Religion
Immigrants
Individual
Individual Liberty
Liberty
Mobility
Reasonable
Rights
Two
Upward Mobility
Values
More
Centuries
Colors
Nation
Create
Degree
Genuinely
Over
Prizes
Quilt
Than
Upward
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Who was Jesus anyway? After twenty centuries, there is not much anyone can agree on. The four canonical gospels don't measure up to modern standards of biographical writing, and - outside of this material - there is precious little contemporary evidence, apart from a few glancing mentions of Jesus or the movement centered on him.
Jay Parini /
Agree
Contemporary
Standards
Anyway
Centered
Centuries
Gospels
Measure
Precious
Twenty
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Jay Parini Quotes - Page 2

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