A biography for Jay Parinihasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“Ridding the world of poverty is, of course, a fantasy.”
“As 'Possession' progresses, it seems less and less like the usual satire about academia and more like something by Jorge Luis Borges.”
“For no good reason, George W. Bush and the best and brightest he could muster, including the likes of Paul Bremer and Paul Wolfowitz, decided it made sense to attack Iraq.”
“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.”
“I'm tired of hearing about this 'well-regulated militia' that is so necessary for American freedom.”
“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.”
“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.”
“One of the first courses I ever taught at Dartmouth was on the Bible as literature.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Then I studied theology in college, and when I was getting a Ph.D. in literature, I took courses in New Testament studies and studied Greek versions of the Gospels.”
“Honest, simple work for young people is essential to their well-being.”
“In a sense, I wrote the book about Jesus that I wanted to read.”
“The most dazzling aspect of 'Possession' is Ms. Byatt's canny invention of letters, poems and diaries from the 19th century.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The core of the Jesus message is what has made him relevant for twenty centuries.”
“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.”