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.

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.

Stop wasting your life and discover who you are

When my grandchildren ask me what I did in the '42 movement [Quit India Movement] I say - "I waited for it.

I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off.

You can never really know where exactly people are looking at! At the place they are staring at? Or at their past? Or at their future?

Much bending breaks the bow; much unbending the mind.

I do not think that this [the universe] can be explained only by natural causes, and are forced to impute to the wisdom and ingenuity of an intelligent.

It is pleasant to see a notorious profligate seized with a concern for religion, and converting his spleen into zeal.

An innate gift and a certain amount of intelligence are important, but what really pays is ordinary experience.

I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

There was an honorable tradition of using anonymous sources that was ruined by Jayson Blair.