Perhaps all science is merely self-investigation.

Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. You don't know what the hell is going on.

I've always thought of writing as sort of active communication.

Was it possible in any relationship to not disappoint, to do anything more than only briefly rekindle the initial fatal illusion?

When I finished graduate school, the first George Bush was president, and I really wanted to get out of the country. We'd just gone through the first Gulf War.

I've also done things that put me in odd situations.

There are certain tribes in the middle Sepik that eat raw bat. A certain kind of raw bat is a delicacy.

Anthropologists are great at novelistic observations. I would be thrilled if this novel would encourage anthropologists to write what they see in fictional form.

I'm very interested in the way people interact emotionally.

There are very few things I would love to do other than a life of writing, and I think being a singer-songwriter and being an anthropologist are the two other things I can imagine doing.

I love this idea of trying to create that intellectual eroticism. That was what I was working toward all along.

A blind man's world is bounded by the limits of his touch

Self importance is self pride.

There is no fear when you choose love. The more you choose love, the more love is in your life. It gets easier and easier.

In Hinduism, conscience, reason and independent thinking have no scope for development.

a book always keeps something of its owner between its pages.

I'm always being asked to play roles or characters that I don't really resemble.

God has given some gifts to the whole human race, from which no one is excluded.

I try to look on the sunny side of life. If something dramatic happens to me, I always try to recount it as a comedy tale, rather than a victim's story.

I don't have time to be negative.

Every word is autobiographical, and every word is fiction.