Quotes from Jay Parini

A personal library is an X-ray of the owner's soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection. There is probably no such thing as complete chaos in such arrangements.

A horse," he once said, "is the symbol of the rider's soul.

Test-oriented teaching strikes me as anti-educational, a kind of unpleasant game that subverts the real aim of education: to waken a student to her or his potential, and to pursue a subject of considerable importance without restrictions imposed by anything except the inherent demands of the material.

This is my commandment," Jesus said, putting before us a single ideal, "That you love one another, as I have loved you" (John 15:12). The simplicity and force of this statement take away the breath.

But Jesus felt her yearning, her fragility masked by bravado. He always broke down barriers, never erected them.

Fictional characters soon take on a life of their own. They run with the bit between their teeth.

Jesus had upset the temporal authorities, and political consequences would surely follow.

Robert Frost suggested (with his usual sly wit) that a person uneducated in the operations of metaphor was not safe in the world, should not even be let out of doors.

More and more, he relied on alcohol to numb himself from the pain of his relationship with Estelle, his anxiety about Meta, the difficulties of writing, and his inability to confront crises that inevitably came his way, such as the deaths of friends and family. Certainly the death of Dean continued to flood him with guilt over his part in encouraging his brother in his career as an aviator and, indeed, selling him the plane that had brought him down.

Writers are always pirates, marauding, taking whatever pleases them from others, shaping these stolen goods to our purposes.

Confucius said the doctrine of the mean was the highest virtue, and rare among men. The Buddhists call it the middle way. Aristotle saw moderation as the essence of virtue. I say moderation in all things, even moderation.

Ideas arise independently from the same mysterious source.

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.

The most dazzling aspect of 'Possession' is Ms. Byatt's canny invention of letters, poems and diaries from the 19th century.

Ridding the world of poverty is, of course, a fantasy.

One of the first courses I ever taught at Dartmouth was on the Bible as literature.

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.

The British, and most European countries, have struggled to accommodate Muslim immigrants, but they have nevertheless welcomed them in large numbers.

Honest, simple work for young people is essential to their well-being.

If you think about it, Jesus was this religious genius who grows up on the Silk Road, and so He's getting from the West all these Greek ideas from Plato about body and soul.

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.

As a Christian, I try to meditate or pray at least once a day, however briefly.

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.

The stories about the life and teachings of Jesus were mainly told in Greek, the original language of the gospels.