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

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

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

Anthropology never has had a distinct subject matter, and because it doesn't have a real method, there's a great deal of anxiety over what it is

My prayer

I'm incredibly competitive in all sports in a way that is so mystifying to my wife because she grew up playing the violin and piano. I've always been like that.

Money cannot buy happiness.

If your writing collides with the conventional wisdom, there's going to be some kind of friction.

Yes, OK, farty is a silly word. I wish I'd never used it. I'm 34. Perhaps it was a word for my 20s.

Don't look back, over your shoulder! Keep your eye on freedom shore! Because you know the brave man with you, also pays for the wages of war.

As an actor, the first thing you learn in drama school is you never judge.

Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.

Focus on your work. Be the best you that you can be. Develop a thick skin and let things roll off your back. And keep a sense of humor!

What if criticism is a science as well as an art? Not a pure or exact science, of course, but these phrases belong to a nineteenth-century cosmology which is no longer with us.