"...she is enormously strong. Pagels not only survived two tragedies in the space of fifteen months but since then has written another book, reared her children, taught her many students. She is, by all reports, a good colleague, a devoted friend. Her mind is quick and generous. At fifty-two, she has a mild, earnest appearance (a rounded, friendly face, windblown blond hair), and yet in conversation she is absolutely fierce, focussed, picking apart the careless question, delighted by the unexpected one. When she delivers her lectures for an undergraduate course on the New Testament—Monday and Wednesday mornings at ten—she does not so much pace the room as prowl it. Pagels radiates so much intensity that you somehow imagine a fast-burning cigarette in her hand. There is none. She does not smoke. She smolders."
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Historians from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesWomen academics from the United StatesPrinceton University facultyWomen born in the 1940s
Original Language: English
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Sources
David Remnick, "The Devil Problem" The New Yorker (March 26, 1995)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elaine_Pagels
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Elaine Pagels
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