What we had actually demonstrated was our cowardice, but there is fellowship in that too.

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

Every salad you serve is a picture you have painted, a sculpture you have modeled, a drama you have created.

Earthly goods deceive the human heart into believing that they give it security and freedom from worry. But in truth, they are what cause anxiety.

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment

Without prayer, life is a panic.

I looked at this man and thought: Oh, how we are going to hurt each other.

I have come one step away from everything. And here I stay, far from everything, one step away.

Family rules? We only have one rule in our house, and that's 'Don't Be Annoying'

Certainly, for me, and it's gone this way on every project I've worked on, the "writing" never ends until you're done with the movie.

Eventually I figured out there was something systematic in the way women are treated.

I think it's getting tougher and tougher, all the big teams are getting stronger and there's more of them.