Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents.

Life, it seems, is nothing if not a series of initiations, transitions, and incorporations.

My academic identity is that of a folklorist, and for many years I have taught only folklore courses.

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.

Future orientation is combined with a notion and expectation of progress, and nothing is impossible.

Americans often have trouble enjoying the present moment.

I mentioned that one of the tripartite formulas in American worldview involves time: past, present, and future.

Americans have a penchant for the future and tend to disregard the past.

Polls are frequently taken to try to tease out or determine likely directions and trends, but once taken, they belong to the past, requiring that new polls be taken.

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

Life is so complicated that sometimes it is better to pass up.

Even in the wood, there was a right road and a wrong one. All the most terrifying fairy tales inevitably began with some foolish innocent (or two) straying from the path. Then anything might happen.

My dad set a clear model for me for what manhood was all about.

Every artist gets asked the question, 'Where do you get your ideas?' The honest artist answers, 'I steal them.'

Independent films now, they want to give you $2 million to make it, 21 days to shoot it and they want 10 movie stars in it.

I drink twenty forties, smoke forty blunts, Say a hundred rhymes, and not sound like you once.

I thought you hung the moon.

Men sometimes have strange motives for the things they do.

On GOP Tax Cuts: They'll take food out of the mouths of children to give tax cuts to the wealthiest.