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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 -
The most dazzling aspect of 'Possession' is Ms. Byatt's canny invention of letters, poems and diaries from the 19th century.
Jay Parini
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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 -
The idea that owning a gun in America was an individual right only dates to the 1980s.
Jay Parini -
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 -
Although the story of George and Lennie in 'Of Mice and Men' ends on a depressing note, there is a peculiar aura of human dignity in it, a hint of redemption.
Jay Parini -
The fact is, we need markers in life, whether we subscribe to a religion or not. And the major holidays, such as Christmas, serve to remind us of the turning world.
Jay Parini -
My earliest memories of holidays are from when I was about eight. We lived in Pennsylvania, and every year we'd visit Miami.
Jay Parini
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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 -
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 -
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 -
In a sense, I wrote the book about Jesus that I wanted to read.
Jay Parini -
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 -
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
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Honest, simple work for young people is essential to their well-being.
Jay Parini -
In truth, Jesus did not, in his own time, attract much notice.
Jay Parini -
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 -
I regard Jesus, like the Buddha, as a figure with the power to shape our lives.
Jay Parini -
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 -
When Gore Vidal was coming up, there were three major channels, and he could count on a big audience when he debated someone like William F. Buckley on TV.
Jay Parini
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When you think about 'The Grapes of Wrath,' it's an American masterpiece, and a very long process goes into the making of such a book.
Jay Parini -
American failures in Vietnam and Iraq suggest that it's not really possible to create and sustain a proxy government in a country far from our own borders.
Jay Parini -
It's impossible to see the face of Jesus without seeking that face in some concentrated way, in the practice of the faith, through prayer and action.
Jay Parini -
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