The preoccupation of American historical and literary scholars with the New England Puritans must seem to outsiders like an obsession.
The Puritans left behind so full a record of what they thought and did that scholars cannot resist the temptation to make the most of it.
Apart from the intrinsic interest of the complex system of beliefs the Puritans carried with them, their lives give a clue to what it meant at the beginning to be American. And the level of scholarship dealing with them has reached a point where it can address the human condition itself.
If you have beautiful knees, show your knees. I'm not a puritan. I love skin.
I was raised not so much in a puritan environment, but for the most part, a pretty healthy one.
Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
The Pilgrim and the Puritan whom we honor tonight were men who did a great deal of work in the world. They had their faults and their - shortcomings, but they were not slothful in business and they were most fervent in spirit.
For a Jewish Puritan of the middle class, the novel is serious, the novel is work, the novel is conscientious application why, the novel is practically the retail business all over again.
Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there.
Most people divorce because one in the couple falls in love with someone else: it's a common cause of divorce. I still think that it's tinted - this is my opinion - with a veil of racism and American puritanism.
