I don't think things are moving toward an omega point; I think they're moving toward more diversity

I'm an inveterate fox and not a hedgehog, so I always think you should try everything

Has feminism made us all more conscious? I think it has. Feminist critiques of anthropological masculine bias have been quite important, and they have increased my sensitivity to that kind of issue

One of the most significant facts about humanity may finally be that we all begin with the natural equipment to a live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end having lived only one

We don't know what we think until we see what we say.

Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.

Culture is public, because meaning is

Most anthropologists are doing straightforward ethnography, and should

Meaning is socially, historically, and rhetorically constructed.

Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.

My instincts are always against people who want to fasten some sort of hegemony onto things

One wrong social move---say---like hanging with the wrong person, ” she said nastily, “Can make your life around here a living nightmare and I definitely don’t think that you want that.

We can let our goals motivate and inspire us, but we don’t want to let them determine our happiness or self worth.

But you can’t give them everything they want—they will always want more than they have.

I am never going to sound like Johnny Mathis.

The belly is the reason that man does not easily mistake himself for a god.

Shouldn't EVERY week be Infection Control Week?

This beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath.

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

You can't base your decisions on anyone's opinion but yours and God's.