Jay Parini Quotes

Mythologies are violent things, and to be true to them, you have to go to primal territory.

Folktales are real.

Magic is at the core of myths.

There was a time when fire and story would fall asleep in unison. It was dream time.

In my introductory course, Anthropology 160, the Forms of Folklore, I try to show the students what the major and minor genres of folklore are, and how they can be analyzed.

To tell the truth, fairytales have never gone out of style. They have been told and retold for thousands of years, finding new shapes and structures with each new generation of tellers.

Mythology does not interest me. Nor does history. But the possible overlap between history and mythology excites me immensely.

From the beginning of time, we've told stories, Shamans and Medicine People, and not to be pompous about it, but I feel like that is the lineage I take down and where I come from. There is magic to storytelling.

Myth is, after all, the neverending story.

Myths are stories that express meaning, morality or motivation. Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.

Mythology is a vast body of knowledge that has not been tapped.

But myth is something else than an explanation of the world, of history, and of destiny.

I love studying folklore and legends. The stories that people passed down for a thousand years without any sort of marketing support are obviously saying something appealing about the basic human condition.

In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn't make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition.

I loved all the world's mythologies.

Medical training taught me the art of breaking down the complex maze of stories, symbols and rituals into clear systems. You could say that it helped me figure out the anatomy and physiology of mythology and its relevance in a society more incisively. How is it that no society can, or does, exist without them?

I believe in mythology. I guess I share Joseph Campbell's notion that a culture or society without mythology would die, and we're close to that.

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion.

Sometimes string figures were used to illustrate stories, as in the case of an Eskimo example that depicts a man catching a salmon. Sometimes they had magic or religious significance.

What I love most about icons is finding out what's behind them, exploring the price of their power.

One of the great advantages of the study of old Norse or Icelandic literature is the insight given by it into the origin of world-wide superstitions. Norse tradition is transparent as glacier ice, and its origin is as unmistakable.

In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

We think in myths; we live in myths

Folklore provides a socially sanctioned outlet for the discussion of the forbidden and taboo.